The Learning Tree (1969)

Set in 1920s Kansas and based on writer-director Gordon Parks’s semi-autobiographical novel, this film centers on Kyle Johnson as a teenager who is quickly forced into adulthood through the events he experiences over the course of a year. Over the short period of time, he is exposed to issues of first love, sex, race, and injustice and how to navigate each as a Black man in small town America. His actions and development are in sharp contrast to those of his friend and later foe Alex Clarke whose path crosses but whose experiences widely deviates from those of Johnson. Overall, the film doesn’t overdramatize the events or force a particular perspective for the viewer. It just offers one man’s realistic, and likely uncommon, experience growing up in middle America.