"Let them burn": Ninth Floor spotlights ugly race riot in Montreal

Montreal's 1969 "Computer Riot" ended with riot police, a blazing fire and several arrests — but the 14-day anti-racism protest probably wasn't covered in your history class. 

Now the new NFB documentary Ninth Floor is calling more attention to an ugly confrontation at Sir George Williams University; one rife with incendiary headlines, racial slurs and chants like "let the n--gers burn". 

Producer Selwyn Jacob joins Shad to explain how a professor's behaviour toward his black students escalated into a two week student occupation of a computer lab. The film challenges the then widely-held view that the students were mere "troublemakers" and revisits the story from a new, more nuanced perspective. 

WEB EXTRA | Ninth Floor is now screening across Canada. Watch the trailer as well as a clip from the film below. (Please note that the trailer contains racial slurs.)