4 Little Girls
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Movie Reviews of 4 Little Girls
Movie Review: History lesson
Summary: 5 Stars
I finally got round to watching this on the History channel last night. It was being screened as part of Black History month, which is in October here in the UK. It's a powerful piece of filmmaking. The movie had barely started and I was already feeling its power. The scenes of the brutality and injustice that black people had to endure during the civil rights movement, combined with the mournful voice of Joan Baez singing "Birmingham Sunday" were just too much. The tears came easily. I immediately knew I just have to have it on DVD.
Spike Lee earned an Oscar nomination for this documentary in 1997. I think he should have won, (the statue went to Mark Jonathan Harris's "The Long Way Home"), as I think this is possibly one of the most significant movies he's ever made. He surprises by avoiding the firebrand rhetoric he is known for and he tells this story of how four young African American girls were murdered by white supremacist bombers back in 1963, without voice-over narration, opting instead for the story to be told by those who were there; namely the girls' friends and families, and civil rights activists who were in Birmingham at the time.
Using these interviews, some of which are joyful (those who prefer to remember the girls the way they lived), some which are excruciatingly painful (those still grieving for their loss) and some of which verge on the ridiculous (namely, that of former Alabama Governor George Wallace - you have to see it to believe it) and interlacing them with archive footage, Lee firmly establishes the segregational fervour and hysteria that existed in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. The bomb went off on September 15th of that year and we are given a run up of the significant events that preceded the act and the devastating consequences that followed it. It is made very clear how Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins and Carole Rosamund Robertson died and while it is made equally clear (by the comments from Bill Cosby, for instance), how the world is a much poorer place without them. More significantly - although this will probably never give the girls' families and friends any solace - it is strongly suggested that their deaths acted as the catalyst that led to the upward surge of the civil rights movement in the south, the black vote and the end of segregation. One man was eventually convicted for the murders but his co-conspirators have never been caught.
Critics and denialists often question the point of looking back, raking over the past, opening up healed wounds, blah, blah, blah, but I'm one of those that firmly believes that regardless of our skin colour, we cannot possibly know where we're headed if we don't have a full picture and clear understanding of where we've come from. I felt sadness, bewilderment and anger watching this but I also felt a lot of pride. This is an important history lesson. Let all those who have ears listen.
Movie Review: The beginning of the Civil Rights movement
Summary: 5 Stars
Having spent time in Mississippi researching a documentary and reading just about every book about the history of the Delta (I recommend The Most Southern Place on Earth, The 1927 Flood and Worse Than Slavery about Parchman Farm) this is a story that shows both the end of segregation and the beginning of the civil rights era. I have always felt that the turning point was when the Black population realized that they grossly outnumbered the Whites and capitalized on naive but touching events like Rosa Parks' story to exercise their economic power. Certainly the story of Emmitt Till and the subsequent publication of his open coffin funeral in The Chicago Defender, the nation's most important Black newspaper at the time.
Since this time, Blacks have demonstrated their power in numbers, won the Civil Rights Act (ironically signed by Texan President Lyndon Johnson) and saw the Delta economy shift away from Agriculture with the arrival of the cotton picking machine, and economically to Tunica MS (the third most popular gambling destination in America)leaving the Blacks who won the civil right movement to work as dealers, maids and fish cleaners on the Catfish farms which dot the southern delta. The political gains (as with rights granted during Reconstruction) lost to mechanization, share cropping and the recommendations of government committees studying "the Negro Problem" and never speaking to one. Why Clinton is so respected by Blacks escapes me. As late as 1999, the president was from Arkansas, the vice president from Tennessee and the speaker of the house from Mississippi. Civil rights and Delta Blacks had lost their economic power after sacreficing these 4 Little Girls, Emmitt Till and so many lynching victim, free but living in poverty in a land where they grossly out-number the While population. It's a story worth studying and this is a video worth watching along with the stories of Rosa Parks, Emmitt Till, and Miss Evers Boys. Think it through; it's not changed much since those days. The Delta goes on forever; it gives new meaning to "You Can Run But You Can't Hide."
In its wake, it has given us John Lee Hooker, Sam Cooke, David Ruffin, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Muddy Waters, Pine Top Perkins, Al Green (from Arkansas), Robert Johnson, James Cotton, Robert Lockwood, Jr, Rev. Willie Morganfield and so many more classic and original artists who stood up to the White majority with the value of their music.
Movie Review: '4 Little Girls' who left behind a great legacy.....
Summary: 5 Stars
September 15, 1963 is a date that remains imprinted in the minds of many--particularly, those from Birmingham, Alabama. This was the day that four innocent young girls died in a racially motivated bombing at an African American Baptist church. Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Addie Mae Collins were innocent casualties in a race war that raged on in the Southern United States, as well as the rest of the country. This was a time when people of all ages were getting involved in the civil rights movement. This included young children as young as twelve years old (the same age, relatively as the four young girls who were murdered). This horrific crime motivated people to become more involved in activism, out of a sense of obligation, also to speak out against racially motivated violence, such as the bombing. Director Spike Lee does a beautiful job of integrating film reel footage from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, along with segments featuring family, friends, and religious leaders connected with the victims, recalling the events that lead up to the tragedy. What's more, Coretta Scott King (late widow of Martin Luther King, Jr.), Rev. Jesse Jackson and Bill Cosby add their perspective to the mix. One of the most chilling parts of the film, for me, was an unsettling clip of the late Governor George Wallace, a notorious advocate for segregation. When the elderly politician presents his African American "right hand man" as his best friend, a chill ran up my spine.
This is a really important documentary to see for several reasons. For starters, I believe everyone should be aware of what took place on that fateful day in Birmingham. Secondly, the film presents this tragic event in a very beautiful and respectful way. Spike Lee is a tremendous storyteller and this piece is very understated, and, yet profound. It's great to see that Lee knows how to make a great statement without resulting in exploitative tactics or manipulation of his audience. The story speaks for itself and this is not an ego trip on the part of the filmmaker in any way. It is a tribute to a tragedy that became a catalyst in the Civil Rights Movement, as well as the eventual prosecution of Robert Chambliss, one of three racists responsible for the bombing. Don't miss out on this film.
Movie Review: TRAGIC KKK MURDER of 4 YOUNG GIRLS!
Summary: 5 Stars
BRAVO SPIKE LEE!
The friends and family of the litte girls speak out to, put a face & personality to the 4 little girls that lost their innocent lives in that church that TRAGIC DAY! So often in documenteries during the time of the civil rights movement you hear this story "BRIEFLY". 4 little girls went to Sunday School...and suddenly the church is bombed. But this film gives the viewer a closer look at who these 4 little girls were, their parents, & siblings & neighborhood friends share memories of these young ladies with the viewer. And that is the LIGHT in this film.
The DARK side to this film is when you learn a BOMB has went off inside the church. You learn that the girls was in the basement of the church or close to where this bomb goes off at. And when the images, of those gilrs bodies later flash across that TV screen it paints the UGLY FACE of just how EVIL the SOUTHERN WHITE PEOPLE (& KKK) were during this time particular time period. It emotionally UPSETS you to see the damage to these girls bodies after that bombing.
The worse part about most of the cases in the south where civil rights activists or innocent people and children were killed was that none of these MURDERERS were brought to JUSTICE (JAILED for MURDER) because the "all WHITE" Jury always found them "NOT GUILTY", or would dismiss all the charges. The judges were white, the jury was always "all white". The police department was always all "WHITE". Now fast foward to more recent times or say the 1990's, most of these same EVIL, KKK white people are now DEAD or EXTREMEMLY OLD. But in some cases they were re trialed (anyway) & sentenced these same murderers to a sentence they should have been sentenced to back when they commited these terrible crimes in the 50's & 60's. But they are so old that they'd DIE shortly after the new sentence. All those years they were FREE & should have been locked up or even sentenced to the electric chair.
What gives any person the RIGHT to kill anybody? Just shoot them like dogs in the street, or hang them from trees, or burn/bomb their houses & churches- Simply because they just want to be treated equally like the "human beings" they are? Its just so SAD & SICK.
Movie Review: Sometimes This Is The Only Way!
Summary: 5 Stars
I vivdly remember reading about this as a youngster of 11 in Jet which, strangely enough, was the only magazine I read from back to front. I also remember the dread sometimes of reading Jet Magazine for you could count on pictures of dead African-Americans who were victims of racism. But this was the way of the world then. I am a grown man and I rarely cry at movies but it is quite impossible to hold back the tears looking at this. It is just as vivid to the parents, relatives, and friends of the four little girls involved in this horrific crime today as if it happened yesterday. Say what you will about Spike...HE WILL MAKE YOU CONFRONT IT WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!
Sometimes this is the only way to get the point across that we have simply got to do better. The movie is quite intense because the memories of the people most intimately involved have not faded in 38 years. One mother even admitted that she doesn't even harbor any hate anymore and has resigned herself to the fact that that would simply not do any good at this point; at the same time this is something that she STILL has to work on daily through the grace of her religious convictions.
An even more chilling scene was where George Wallace, segregationist EXTRAORDINAIRE who supposedly modified his beliefs in his later years, was insisting that he and this black man were and always had been the best of friends!!!...it is obvious to the naked black eye, that the man in question most certainly did NOT think that but knew it best to let senile old George Wallace believe that if he must. (forgive my lack of objectivity here, but this one scene really got on my nerves!!!)
Nonetheless, a beautiful documentary and a must see but be prepared to at least have to take a breather because it is intense but WELL worth the discomfort. Hats off, Spike! You've done it again!!!!!