Justice
'Show Me a Hero' Has Wrapped, But Check Out Its Real-Life Prequel
The 2007 documentary Brick by Brick: A Civil Rights Story chronicles ghastly segregation in Yonkers public schools just before the events in David Simon’s series unfold.
When it comes to racial segregation, housing and schooling are two sides of the same coin. David Simon’s HBO mini-series Show Me a Hero, which concluded Sunday night, captures the fight for fair housing better than any piece of cinema ever has.
Yet there’s a second saga to the Yonkers story. The battle over the court-ordered plan to build low-income housing in the New York suburb’s affluent white neighborhoods got its start as a case over the acute segregation of Yonkers public schools.