Raising Bertie

This clip offers students the opportunity to meet Vivian Saunders, the founder of The Hive—the alternative school where Jr, Bud, and Dada attend—and get a more complicated understanding of the opportunities and challenges each face coming of age in rural North Carolina.

In this clip we listen to Dada, Junior and Cheryl, Junior’s mother, share their perspectives on the economic reality of life in their Bertie County and witness their strength and resilience to continue to build a better life for themselves.

In the final clip of the lesson we see the celebration of Dada graduating high school, we listen to Bud share his struggles with fatherhood, and the next steps for Junior as he becomes a new father and continues to work more than two hours out of town.

Raising Bertie filmmaker Margaret Byrne discusses and reflects on her role as a white filmmaker – and an outsider – documenting the lives of three young African American boys in Bertie County, North Carolina.

Raising Bertie filmmaker Margaret Byrne talks about Vivian Saunders, executive director of The Hive in Bertie County, North Carolina.

Raising Bertie is an intimate portrait of three African American boys as they face a precarious coming of age in rural Bertie County, North Carolina. Like many rural areas, Bertie County struggles with a dwindling economy, a declining population, and a high school graduation rate below the state average.