OAKLAND — Students and guests at McClymonds High got an eye-opening view of a brutal chapter of American history when Hollywood filmmaker Nate Parker brought his “Birth of a Nation” movie to the school auditorium for a free screening and discussion.

The panel talk with Parker after the film, led by former Black Panther Party chairwoman Elaine Brown, emphasized the need for reform in schools’ history curricula.

Parker’s film, released in early October, tells the story of Virginia slave Nat Turner, who in 1831 led a brief, bloody rebellion — it lasted only 48 hours — for which he was ultimately hanged.

“My hope is that this film stands the test of time,” Parker said.

“I don’t make films for weekends,” he said of its historical subject. “Our children need it.”

In their two-day insurrection, Turner’s 70 or so followers massacred 50 to 60 slave owners and their families. In response, militias and mobs slaughtered hundreds of uninvolved men and boys left behind on the plantations from which the rebels had fled. Turner hid out for a couple of months, but was hanged within a week of his capture.

The film depicts the brutality of slavery and the desperation that drove Turner, who had enjoyed a degree of status in his community as a preacher, thanks in part to the literacy he acquired as a youngster.

The film also depicts vigilante slave patrols terrorizing slaves they encountered on roads without passes from their owners. There are scenes of slave auctions, whippings, families being divided and rape.

Besides Parker and Brown, the panel discussion following the film’s screening included Oakland Unified School District Deputy Superintendent Bernard McCune and Christopher Muhammad, of the Nation of Islam.

“This is where it should be seen,” Brown said in opening the talk before the hundreds of students and community members in attendance. She noted that the next day, Nov. 11, would mark the 185th anniversary of Turner’s hanging. “This is legacy.”

“The miseducation in this country goes from coast to coast,” Parker said in response to Brown’s question about why and how he made the film. “What do you want your children to think about you when you’re gone?

“You explain police brutality in the context of Nat Turner, it takes on a whole different form,” he said.

To make the film, he said, “I had to go on a begging tour.” It was not easy convincing financiers to invest in his film about “liberation, freedom, self-determination … about becoming the liberator in the name of God,” but, “because I raised the money, I had no one looking over my shoulder.”

“If you’re a person of color in this country, you’re being miseducated. I didn’t know anything about anybody who looked like me. I grew up a 30- to 40-minute drive from where the rebellion happened, and I never heard of it,” he said.

The movie is Parker’s directorial debut. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January and became the subject of a bidding war between several Hollywood studios seeking to distribute it.

Parker recounted a conversation he had with Harry Belafonte. The outspoken performer counseled him on how young he, Martin Luther King Jr., and other historical leaders had been when they began their work. But yet, “We were elders when we were in the streets, behind the eight-ball,” he said Belafonte told him.

“We’re handing the movement over to you,” he said to the audience. “Raise your hands if you’re an organizer. How many future directors, artists? We need your voices. No one’s going to save us, they’re just not.”

The audience relished the film, cheering at Turner’s triumphs. “We have a spirit moving through McClymonds,” Brown said, “Now we have an example to follow. Let’s go forward and make this part of the OUSD curriculum.”

She called out McCune, school Superintendent Antwan Wilson “and all the others” including newly re-elected school board member Jumoke Hinton Hodge, who was in the audience and soon joined the group onstage.

“The second we think one decision and one election can destroy us, then we have nothing to gain,” Parker said.

Contact Mark Hedin at 510-293-2452, 408-759-2132 or mhedin@bayareanewsgroup.com.