Documentary Elevates Black Stories That Have Never Been Told

A new documentary is elevating Black stories that have never been told.

It's narrated by a Chicago Public Schools high school senior whose mission is to empower students like her.

The minds behind the documentary say the film is meant to motivate a generation to take Black history out of a silo and into the light.

It was the link Kyla Nash has been craving.

"The same way you know who George Washington is, you should know who Billy Che is," said Nash, a Brooks College Prep senior.

Watch the story from ABC-7

Nash says for years she would develop Black history curriculum, sitting on the front porch with her grandmother, filling the void of what she says is missing in her school curriculum.

"I felt like I wasn't challenged. And even if I was challenged, it wasn't with the knowledge or history that I needed to know," Nash said.

Nash is the narrator of the "Against the Current" documentary, a film exploring Black resistance throughout the history of Illinois.

"She had this moment in the film where she says she's sitting at the confluence of the Mississippi River, where it meets the Ohio River in Cairo, Illinois. And she says, 'I could feel the history being here,'" documentarian Asif Wilson said.

Those lightbulbs are what Wilson, alongside director Joshua Jackson, wanted to illuminate on-screen, teaching the pieces of history from Chicago to Robbins and beyond that have gone long overlooked.

"There's a large gap in curriculum in the middle school age; that's also a place where students are really excited," Wilson said.

Once they complete their screening tour, Wilson, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois, says the film will become one part of a plethora of resources alongside three online textbooks, flashcards, and a digital resource map - all free of cost - and all to uplift.

"I felt empowered. I felt like I had purpose. I felt like everybody around me had purpose," Nash said.

"That truth will carry us to tomorrow and maybe into next year and maybe into the forever future," Wilson said.