American History X

Seventeen year old high school student Danny Vinyard is assigned a history essay on "any book related to the human rights struggle", but submits an essay on Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, a direct affront to Mr. Murray, his Jewish history teacher. African-American principal and outreach worker Dr. Bob Sweeney refuses to expel Danny, instead telling Danny that he will study history in terms of current events under his own direction or else be expelled, and that the class will be called American History X. Danny's first assignment is to prepare a paper for the next day on his brother Derek, a former neo-Nazi leader who is that day being released from prison, and to analyze the factors which led Derek to that path, and the impact of it on Danny's own life. Danny then goes to the bathroom and finds a white student being bullied by three African-American students, and steps in, openly disrespecting the black students.