in the high school, where generations of
graduates would come together to watch
the basketball teams. The boys were state
champions two years ago.
For Burton, saving the school was vital
to Benton Harbor’s future, but it wasn’t
enough. “All communities deserve to
have a school,” she says. “But they also
deserve to have a good school, with re-
sources. It can’t just be for Tiger Pride.”
She listened hard and didn’t hear the
voices of the students themselves. So she
called a friend from Atlanta who pro-
duced music videos and gathered a group
of Benton Harbor High kids, including
Asia Tillman. For the next four months,
they met after school at the Boys & Girls
Club, turning a gospel ballad into a hip-
hop track called “Get Up.” Its video is
sharp and dramatically lit, cutting on
the beat between four students singing
in the high school halls, classrooms and
gym, calling for the school debt to be for-
given and their education renewed.
Burton uploaded the nearly five-
minute clip to Facebook in early May 2019,
and the number of views started jumping:
10,000, then 20,000. There was a story
about the video on the evening news, and
she was elated. It was the best vision of
the school that anyone had seen in years.
Meanwhile, in the state capital of
Lansing, Governor Whitmer had recently
begun her first term. A rising star in the
Democratic Party who would later give
the official response to President Trump’s
2020 State of the Union address, Whitmer
was worried about Benton Harbor High
School. According to state government
sources, fewer than three 11th- graders
were deemed college-ready in each of
the previous five years. Closing the school
seemed like a tough but necessary step on
behalf of Benton Harbor’s children.
So two weeks after Burton’s music
video hit Facebook, Whitmer shocked
the community by announcing plans to
shut down the high school. The district,
Whitmer proposed, would keep its ele-
mentary and middle schools, while high
school students would be dispersed to
seven schools in nearby districts, includ-
ing Lakeshore, or charter schools. Their
state funding would follow, and some ofBenton Harbor High’s outstanding debt
could be forgiven.
After the news broke, views of Bur-
ton’s video jumped again—100,000, then
200,000. The plan was announced dur-
ing finals, and stressed-out students told
Burton they watched it every morning to
keep centered. “Before my freshman year,
everybody told me, ‘Don’t go to the high
school,’ ” says Cameron Gordon, who sings
in the video. But, he explains, it wasn’t
bad like they said. “Right now, I’m in the
band. I love the band! I play the tuba. But
we literally have to get our own funds for
everything we do.” Every year, he adds,
the words people use about the school
get worse. “We have a lot of talent here,
but without money that talent is useless.”
At a community meeting in a local
church that stretched to four hours,
Whitmer conceded that her plan was
“not being met with a lot of enthusi-
asm with many people in this room.” In
July, the Benton Harbor school board re-
jected the proposal. Reluctant to force
through a restructuring against the com-
munity’s wishes, Whitmer agreed to moreST. JOSEPH Half a mile away, this mostly white town has a strong tax base and better schools