Emmy award-winning filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle of Fourth Wall Films will take part in Q&A following the screening of their two-part documentary series The Amish Incident: Rural Conflict & Compromise and The Amish Incident: Wisconsin vs Yoder at the Marengo Public Library, 235 E. Hilton Street, Marengo, Iowa on Sunday, August 14, at 1:00 p.m. The event is free to the public and sponsored by the Friends of the Marengo Public Library Foundation.
In November of 1965, local school officials decided to bus Amish children into town schools, and a newspaper photographer captured an iconic image of the kids fleeing from authorities into a nearby cornfield. The incident and the photograph ignited a firestorm of arrests, fines, and controversy leading to a unique precedent-setting covenant between the "Plain People" and the State of Iowa. The film features photographs by photographer David Marvitz which were permitted by the Amish. The award-winning The Amish Incident: Rural Conflict and Compromise (Part 1, 25-min.) was partially funded by grants from Silos & Smokestacks National Heritage Area, and Humanities Iowa.
The Amish Incident: Wisconsin vs Yoder (Part 2, 25-min.) explores the battle over education and parental rights that emerged from a small Amish community near New Glarus, Wisconsin. The 1968 conflict began when Amish parents removed their children from public schools over a state law compelling education beyond the 8th grade. Three Amish fathers were convicted and fined for truancy violations. As a rule, the Amish do not “go to law” to resolve legal conflicts, but with help offered by an outside legal team, the subsequent trial and appeals culminated in a dramatic 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision that defined how Wisconsin and other states facilitate education for Amish children.
The film features writer Shawn Francis Peters (The Yoder Case: Religious Freedom, Education, and Parental Rights), nationally-recognized Amish historian Mark DeWalt (Amish Education in the Unites States and Canada), and historian Kim D. Tschudy (New Glarus: Images of America), and tells a fascinating and important true story of a monumental courtroom clash over education and religious freedom. The film features photographs by journalist/photographer Ray Barth.
"For me, when I've thought about this case, one of the reasons I really got drawn into it was it kind of turns our understanding of landmark cases on its head. We think about victory and vindication, and fame, and this is very complicated in a lot of ways. Part of the legacy of this case is actually what happened to the New Glarus Amish and Jonas Yoder," said author Dr. Shawn Peters, who teaches at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is an internationally-recognized expert on religious liberty issues.
The Amish Incident: Wisconsin vs Yoder was funded in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Humanities, with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Richland County Historical Society is the fiscal sponsor of the documentary project.
Kelly and Tammy Rundle won an Emmy® award for their documentary Over and Under: Wildlife Crossings, and have received eight Emmy® nominations for their film work, including Becoming Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sons & Daughters of Thunder, Good Earth: Awakening the Silent City, River to River: Iowa’s Forgotten Highway 6, and Letters Home to Hero Street (co-produced with WQPT-PBS). They are the producers of twelve award-winning documentaries including the Lost Nation: The Ioway series, The Barn Raisers, and Villisca: Living with a Mystery.
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