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Two teams from LaGrange Academy scored wins for their National History Day competition projects, earning trips to Washington, D.C.

Stuart Greer, Bryan Lee and Raayan Ahmed won first place in the junior division of regional competition for their project on the British invasion of Zulu land in southern Africa. Kaylee McAllister and Ava Edelson received second place for their project on the Chinese Exclusion Act. 

In the National History Day competition, individuals or teams submit projects in one of four categories: documentary, exhibit, paper or performance. Both teams moving on from LaGrange Academy chose to make documentary videos for their projects.

Both teams were relatively new to filmmaking, but they learned a lot about both history and videography.

“This was the first time we experimented with a lot of things that aren’t commonly seen in other documentaries for this category,” Greer said. “We watched some of the previous national winners, and their contents were good, but most of them were essentially slide shows. We wanted to do something slightly different, so we decided to do 3D animation alongside photos and other small animations. We think it turned out really well.”

Lee said when they started, he didn’t know anything about 3D modeling or animation, but he learned quickly.

“I didn’t know how to do any of that. I just started learning a few months ago,” Lee said. “I think that it helped me because I’m very interested in that kind of stuff. I think it was very fun, too.”

For McAllister and Edelson, their focus was the history rather than filmmaking, but they were new to it too.

“Me and Ava didn’t have any filmmaking experience at all. We just went into it open-minded,” McAllister said. “We were really more worried about the information than the graphics.”

The entries were graded projects for the students, so McAllister said they knew their teacher was probably going to look over the information more than they cared about the graphics.

“We made sure our script was the best thing going into it,” she said. “We cared about how it looked, we just were more focused on that information than the graphics.”

McAllister said she and her partner, Ava, did their project on the Chinese Exclusion Act.

“As we dug deeper, we figured out how truly disrespectful we were to the Chinese immigrants and how we treated them wrong in multiple ways,” McAllister said. “They did a lot for America. We forced them to do labor that we were too lazy to do, and they helped a lot with the transcontinental railroad. We still continue to discriminate and assume that they are transmitting diseases.”

“Ava and I just wanted to prove how we can’t discriminate against people who were just living here. They were helping a lot with America and building America. They were a huge part of America’s history, but we continued to degrade them and say terrible things about them and just make up terrible assumptions,” McAllister said.

Greer, Lee and Ahmed did their documentary on the British invasion and colonization of the Zulu Kingdom.

Greer said the Zulu were a tribe of a million people in southern Africa colonized by Britain during the Anglo-Zulu War. 

“The British decided they wanted to have more control over South Africa because of other European powers that were pressuring them into doing it. So, they sent an ultimatum to King Cetshwayo, the king of Zulus at the time, with impossible demands, like disbanding their whole army,” Greer said. “He didn’t completely understand the full contents of it, so he sent messengers, and those messengers were attacked, and their messages were not listened to at all. Eventually, the British declared war, and they fought, and the British won.”

Lee said that when they were picking their topic, they wanted to focus on both sides, but they quickly learned how bad the English actions were.

“We looked at both Zulu and British perspectives. When we did that, I think that what the British did was very bad and how irresponsible their actions were,” Lee said. “We tried to focus on what the British did and how the Zulus were affected by it.”

“Even some high-ranking officials in Britain spoke badly about the British actions in Zulu land because they didn’t think it was right. I think even the overall British government didn’t appreciate it, but they didn’t do anything about it,” Greer said.

For the students, the next level of competition is June 8 through June 12 in Washington, D.C., and hosted by the University of Maryland.