After MLK's assassination, this schoolteacher conducted a legendary social experiment to teach kids about racism


On April 5, 1968, the day after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, Riceville, Iowa schoolteacher Jane Elliott ran an incredible social experiment in her third grade classroom. Her "Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes" exercise identified the kids "as inferior or superior based solely upon the color of their eyes and exposes them to the experience of being a minority." The exercise had a tremendous, and lasting, impact on those children and countless others, and sparked Elliott's lifelong role as a an anti-racism activist and educator.


Above is a 1985 episode of Frontline about Elliott. Below is her appearance last week on The Tonight Show: