Saturday, August 14, 6:30 pm, 5604 Manor, 5604 Manor Road

5604 Manor Summer Film Nights – “Walkout”. 5604 Manor is a new space on Manor Road dedicated to making a better community and a better world. Austin Voices and the Third Coast Activist Resource Center are combining this summer to offer free Saturday night screenings of great films that show what is possible when people use their creative talents to achieve a goal. The film screenings are open to the public with free snacks and beverages.

The final film of the summer is “Walkout,” the true story of a little-known but profoundly significant moment in the history of the Latino community in East Los Angeles. In 1968, Lincoln High School honor student Paula Crisostomo (Alexa Vega) was outraged at the shabby treatment afforded Chicano students in the L.A. school system — including lowered expectations, poor facilities, an absence of bilingual courses or textbooks, unfairly administered penalties, demeaning corporal punishment, and refusal to write letters of recommendation to choice colleges — and organizes a mass student walkout at five barrio high schools.

Mentored by dedicated young teacher Sal Castro (Michael Pena), Paula and her fellow student activists intend to make their protest a peaceful one, but the L.A. cops use force to quell the “radicals.” Even when it seems that the school board will capitulate to the Chicano students’ demands, the kids are betrayed and the leaders of the walkout are threatened with lengthy prison sentences on trumped-up “conspiracy” charges. The students are ultimately successful, and the events have a lasting effect on its participants. The film is directed by Edward James Olmos, who also plays one of the school board members.