Ana Thorne

SOC129: History, Theory & Ethics of Documentary Film

Instructor: A. Tad Chamberlain

April 2, 2006
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Film Analysis

4 Little Girls (1997)

HBO/40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks
A Spike Lee Joint

In his first feature length, academy award-nominated documentary, 4 Little Girls

(1997), Spike Lee takes on the role of film griot, a West African storyteller who

perpetuates the oral tradition and history of a village or family. Lee “bypasses the role of

impartial commentator for the duty of the griot, the keeper of a people’s collective

memory” (Klotman, 141) as he recounts a 34 year old act of terror that jolted a nation’s

racial sensibilities and deposited incessant pain and tragedy into the lives of four

Birmingham, Alabama families. Lee’s political stance and the point of blame for the

September 15, 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church is evident in the tag line

on the film’s DVD -- “The story of four young girls who paid the price for a nation’s

ignorance.” The church bombing and deaths of 11 year-old Denise McNair, and 14 year-

old Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, and Carole Rosamond Robertson occurred at a

pivotal moment in the history of the nation and acted as a catalyst to a flagging social

movement by gaining international media attention. This paper will illustrate how Lee as

film griot brings together the elements of racial history, racial expression, and racial

politics to tell the story of the 4 Little Girls , their families, and a nation on the brink of

change, or madness.

In 4 Little Girls, Lee reclaims black images and recounts black experience that

serves as a “new paradigm for telling and teaching a painful but liberating” history lesson

(119). Struggling against an African American film legacy of “fictions, myths,

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stereotypes, misconceptions, and lies,” Lee’s documentary comes off as an “independent

examination of social reality” that stands “out in a space of public interest and debate”

(124). Lee succeeds in examining both a “larger social context” and family narrative to

give witness to the history, psychology, and emotions of the people and the times

(Klotman, 339).

Lee’s sense of this piece of tragic, African American history came to him through

the oral tradition -- “I heard about it from my parents” (Judell). A large part of “Black

culture resides in the oral tradition and our institutions are people … so when the people

die it’s devastating” (337). Lee felt that the incident was an “important piece of history

that … [we] need to know about … might not have been told about … [and it] wasn’t

taught in schools” (Susman). Lee posits that young people “are bearing the fruits of

everybody who had to sacrifice and struggle” before and during the civil rights

movement (Judell). Warning that Blacks should not live in denial of a common,

dehumanizing racial past, Lee more than demonstrates in 4 Little Girls a willingness to

“revisit[ing] painful parts of history … we need to do it … that’s our legacy” (Judell).

These painful parts embody the essence of Lee’s documentary that does not fail to reveal

the price blacks pay to be held as humans and rightful citizens.

By way of legacy, responsibility and survival, the black documentarist’s “struggle

is inextricably tied to the day to day struggle of the community against the forces of racial

and cultural prejudice” (Klotman, 344). His job is to confront and challenge society

within the cultural parameters (354). With the civil rights movement as the larger

backdrop, the story of the young girls is told in parallel with the story of a racially

charged Birmingham that Dr. Martin Luther King characterized as “the most thoroughly
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segregated city” in the nation. The stark reality of everyday humiliation experienced by

blacks is shown in “stock footage from the past … [of] images as simple as two drinking

fountains, one labeled white and one labeled colored, to ones as dramatic as a church in

rubbles, the film shocks the viewer with their country’s own history” (Rhodes). In a tone

imbued with helpless pragmatism, Chris McNair describes the time he had to tell his

daughter Denise that she could not purchase or eat a sandwich at a certain lunch counter

because her skin was dark.

Intimate family memories made up of “old photos … childhood anecdotes …

personal touches” (Maslin), home movies and personal items such as Girl Scout Merit

badges, a favorite doll, awards and blue ribbons conjure up the lives of the 4 Little Girls.

These images of youth and promise cut short contrast with archival footage and stills that

illustrate the large scale pervasiveness of racial separatism and racial oppression in a

climate of violence. The vigilant enforcement of racial oppression is seen in the person

of Eugene “Bull” Connor, Public Safety Commissioner of Birmingham. He becomes an

archetypal symbol of racial brutality as he orders the use of vicious dogs and high

pressure fire hoses to break up crowds of marchers and protesters and arrests school

children who only know they “want equal rights … freedom … and to be treated like

everybody else.” Footage of Connor’s white tank patrolling the “colored” areas of

Birmingham turns a neighborhood into a war zone. Ultimately, the images of cruel and

callous treatment of black children and the murders of Denise, Addie, Cynthia and Carole

produced worldwide headlines – “massacre of the innocents” (Branch, 137) – that

embarrassed a nation into paying attention to its festering racial sore.

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In the role of film griot, Lee not only gives the “fascinated viewer an intimate

acquaintance with [this] vital passage of American history,” (Klotman, 127) he also

empowers the personal grief of the parents, families, and friends as they give voice to

pain that is more than 30 years old. After thinking about making this film for more than

10 years, Lee went back to “talk to the witnesses – friends and relatives who knew them,

and have them speak – to really dig deep into the climate of the times” (Lee 223). Lee

gives these forgotten families a voice to share their stories and their grief not only in their

own emotion-choked words, but also through the sadness, futility, and, in some cases,

panic in their eyes.

The use of close-ups in a film generally sets apart the individual and endows him

with strength and abilities that enable them to overcome odds and accomplish things out

of the ordinary (Klotman 343). The facial close-ups in 4 Little Girls draw the viewer into

the psyches of the grieving parents and family members and lend a dramatic force that

holds the viewer to the face of the speaker. Lee’s camera lets silence speak of the agony.

In these brief seconds, the long held feelings find a surface on which to rest. I could feel

the force of the ongoing cathartic process within the family members as they spoke. Two

instances in particular held my attention. Addie’s sister Junie relates her “devastating

experience” and the ensuing panic attacks where she is “afraid of being in or outside …

of anywhere.” A close look reveals the trembling of Junie’s body, the quivering of her

mouth as she talks, and a wide-eyed look of terror that emanates from the memory of the

bombing and the loss of her sister. I could feel her fear, anxiety and sense of doom.

Even more compelling, Chris McNair recounts the experience of identifying his

daughter’s body at the University Hospital’s makeshift morgue. While McNair speaks,
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Lee shows quick cuts of the burned, mangled and decapitated bodies lying on steel slabs

in the morgue. By this time in the film, the viewer has come to depend on McNair’s

steady voice and demeanor amid the personal horror. He describes the scene of Denise

lying in the morgue with a “concrete, mortar-like rock embedded in her head.” Even

here, his voice maintains its constancy. However, when he is finished speaking, the

viewer sees a barely perceptible break in his protective emotional armor. The camera

lingers long enough to see his face wilt. The muscles relax and convey a mix of despair

and futility. The viewer can almost see the gruesome scene replay in his mind’s eye. In

this instance, Lee mirrors the words of Mamie Till who said she wanted the world to see

the photos of her son Emmett’s badly decomposed body after he was brutally murdered

and his body thrown into the Tallahatchie River by white racists in Mississippi in 1955.

Film critic Roger Ebert questioned Lee’s purpose in showing “shots that are almost

unbearable.” He answers his own question – “To look full in the face of what was done

… to show racism its handiwork” (Ebert).

The griot depends solely on memory to store and retell the events of the past; he

is not above offering interpretation of events. Accuracy and credibility are the

cornerstones of his responsibilities to his audience. In Lee, the film griot is at work

inscribing on camera how significant history impinges on everyday lives. The inner

circle of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) – Dr. King, Rev. Wyatt

T. Walker, Rev. Andrew Young, Rev. James Bevel, Diane Nash, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth

– provides eyewitness account to their direct participation and involvement in the events

depicted in 4 Little Girls from a black leadership point of view. These seasoned and

untiring activists relate the overriding national, state and local struggle for blacks in
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Birmingham and elsewhere, and provide insight to the behind the scenes machinations

and strategies deemed necessary to retain media focus on the issue of civil rights. The

most significant strategy at the time was the decision to allow black high school, junior

high and elementary school children to engage in protest; put in the forefront to face Bull

Connors’ billy clubs, dogs, fire hoses and jail. In 4 Little Girls, Rev. Walker relates that

Dr. King was afraid the families and the community would blame him for the bombing

and for putting the children at risk. Walker and King went immediately to Birmingham

to visit the grieving parents and families and also to try to arrange one funeral celebration

for the 4 Little Girls. Dr. King preached at the funeral of three of the girls – an

international media event – providing the “balm of Gilead” to a volatile racial situation.

The SCLC always needed operating funds. Many African American celebrities

and sports figures contributed money and helped to raise money. They were also part of

the protestors who marched and went to jail. This level of involvement within the

African American community is reflected in Lee’s interviews with Ossie Davis and Bill

Cosby, both of whom participated in marches with Dr. King and are also known and

respected in the film, theatre and television worlds. Their importance and relevance to

the documentary reflects Lee’s acknowledgement of iconic African Americans who have

gone before to break down racial barriers and pave the way for future generations. Sadly,

the 4 Little Girls are not part of the future generation and cannot participate in the

opportunities that their deaths helped to create.

The griot’s story is complex and engages to tell all sides of the story. To this end,

Lee includes unintelligible commentary from an aged and disabled former Governor of

Alabama, George Wallace juxtaposed with Wallace’s infamous “segregation then,

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segregation now, segregation forever” inaugural speech (Rhodes). The two extremes, in

my view, cancel Wallace out and portray him as a vital and dangerous, misguided fool

and an aged and harmless, misguided fool -- a symbol of the false construction of racism

and the decay of its architects.

That this act of terror was perpetrated on four young African American girls

within the safe confines of their church is shamefully incongruous. A catalytic event like

the church bombing that killed 4 Little Girls provided a “moment when all of America

could look away no longer from the face of racism” (Ebert). In the documentary, Walter

Cronkite said, “It was the awakening.” A lot had happened to the nation in 1963 before

and after the Birmingham tragedy – Medgar Evers of the NAACP was assassinated in

Mississippi; the March on Washington and Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech;

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. A certain authority is conferred on these

events and others in 4 Little Girls as they are put into context by such professionals as

Howell Raines, New York Times Editor, Walter Cronkite, CBS News, Taylor Branch,

historian and author, Nicholas Katzenbach, former U.S. Attorney General, and Bill

Baxley, former Attorney General of Alabama and prosecutor of “Robert ‘Dynamite Bob’

Chambliss the white racist who was tried and convicted of the church bombing”

(Guthmann). The remarks from these authority figures are empathetic and measured by

their journalistic, scholarly, and legal qualifications and if we pay close attention, we can

hear the wheels of justice grinding slowly and exceedingly small.

The griot’s memory is a trained and disciplined tool that he uses to give life to the

past, meaning to the present and hope for a future. However, for everyday people

memories are not reliable; they fade easily and images become difficult to summon. Erik
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Barnouw talks about oral histories as “reminiscences, [where] the central moments of

such experiences tend to be eradicable memories, although details at the edges may grow

fuzzy … [emphasizing] the importance of multiple witnesses” (Klotman, 55). While the

function of memory can be mysterious when the reasons why people “choose to

remember or not to remember” are examined, reclaiming memories can be empowering

(338). Lee confirms that “it is very important that films make people look at what

they’ve forgotten” (Baxter). Film critics agree that “4 Little Girls … [is] a reminder of

the thick vein of racism that still runs through America, and the importance of never

forgetting” (Guthmann). While events may become clouded, sensations record on a more

primordial level and remain with us longer. Chris McNair gives Biblical meaning to his

final evening with Denise as he describes the scene in the family kitchen and talks about

a “Last Supper” of broiled chicken that he shared with his daughter. Addie’s sister, Janie,

talks about the funeral and said that she “remember[s] Dr. King being there, but I can’t

remember everything he said.” She said that she was “so hurt” faced with three caskets,

one of them her sister’s, that she could not really listen; she could feel “nothing but hurt.”

Addie did not hear Dr. King intone several times that “life is as hard as steel.” As the

representative and voice of Dr. King, Coretta Scott King reads a letter of comfort that Dr.

King wrote to the families in the December following the bombing. As she ends the

letter, the viewer sees images of mourners and an open casket. Addie and Chris McNair

and the other families were not as hard as steel and neither were the 4 Little Girls.

The griot owes his profession and his sensibilities to the subjects of his body of

work and the legacy of those who went before him. Other African American filmmakers

and documentarists precede Lee “as chroniclers of their people’s culture, life styles,
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hopes and dreams” (Klotman, 7). However, Lee as griot has a longer history to draw

from and a “deeper, stronger sense of [his] own identity and history … to effect change”

(30). He “share[s] the commitments of [his] forerunners: recording the highs and lows of

ordinary folk, as well as extraordinary moments in black history and culture as seen from

within … contributing[ed] to bringing to life the great canvas of African American

experience” (30). Lee realizes his responsibility and his role and knows that the

“extraordinary humanity of these people who actually had their children blown up …

makes [him] seem small” (Lee, 227). As part of his maturation process as a filmmaker,

Stanley Crouch said that Lee “was baptized by those parents when he made 4 Little Girls

… it woke him up as a man … [and] he started to go in the direction of becoming a major

film director” (227). Lee confirms this assessment by revealing his reverence for the

families of the 4 Little Girls: “When you get to meet the African Americans from a much

older generation, you would think that somehow they would be full of hatred and

bitterness. But they weren’t. These are people who lost their daughters. But they were

very philosophical … had many years to live with this pain, but it is something that never

goes away” (227). Those who write about film for a living call Lee the “most important

director in contemporary American cinema … up there with the most enigmatic and

incendiary Americans of this century” (Baxter). If indeed Lee has that “ability to light a

fire within you; leaving you enlightened [and] enraged” (Baxter), then it is because he

believes that “all we had to do was tell the truth … the story was powerful enough …

long as we could tell the truth … not get in the way, make everything plain and simple”

(Susman).
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Lee had to wait 10 years from the time he was interested in making 4 Little Girls

until he could gain the cooperation of the McNairs and the other families to turn on his

camera. In this regard, time was on his side. Chambliss was convicted of the bombing in

1977 and sentenced to prison where he died. As a result of the release of 4 Little Girls,

three others were charged and brought to justice when the FBI revealed evidence that it

had previously withheld. Lee exercised the inherent power of film “to effect change in

reality” (Klotman, 345) in the commanding documentary 4 Little Girls. The stark

portrayal of events and feelings in this film educate, provide a platform for catharsis, and

soothe wounds that can never heal. Lee’s film is “more remarkable, though, in making

the girls unforgettable and eliciting the long-buried emotions of those who loved them”

(Maslin). Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, and Carole Rosamond

Robertson are the “falling stars who seem to pass before the world’s eyes and disappear

before being fully recognized [as] extraordinary” (135). Their families remain

inconsolable among the living ghosts of 4 Little Girls.

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Works Cited

Baxter, Billy. Efilmcritic.com, 12/4/99. 15 Feb. 2006 http://efilmcritic.com/feature/php?

feature=141.

Branch, Taylor. Pillar of Fire: American in the King Years 1963-1968. New York: Simon &

Schuster, 1998.

Ebert, Roger. Rogerebert.com Movie Reviews, 10/24/97. 15 Feb. 2006

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.d11/article?

AID=/19971024/REVIEWS/710240301/1023.

4 Little Girls. Dir. Spike Lee. HBO/40 Acres & a Mule Filmworks, 1997.

Guthmann, Edward. San Francisco Chronicle, 10/10/97. 15 Feb. 2006 www.sfgate.com/cgi-

bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/1997/10/10 ....

Judell, Brandon. People Archives, indieWIRE.com, 12/12/0\97. 15 Feb. 2006

www.indiewire.com/people/int_Lee_Spike_971212.html.

Klotman, Phyllis R. and Cutler, Janet K., eds. Struggles for Representation: African American

Documentary Film and Video. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1999.

Lee, Spike. That’s My Story and I’m Sticking To It (as told to Kaleem Aftab). New York:

Norton & Co., 2005.

Maslin, Janet. New York Times, 7/9/97. 15 Feb. 2006 http://query.nytimes.com/search/article-

printpage.html?res=9500EED...

Rhodes, Steve. IMDB.com Reviews, 1997. 15 Feb. 2006

http://reviews.imdb.com/Reviews/100/10012.

Susman, Gary. The Director’s Chair Interviews, 1997. 15 Feb. 2006

http://industrycentral.net/director_interviews/SL01.HTM.
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4 Little Girls