Review: Freedom Riders

Direct action groups are often seen within larger social movements as being too demanding, too naive and ultimately too annoying to contribute to the larger purpose at hand. But few people ever opened a newspaper to see a photo of someone writing a letter to Congress or attending a silent auction and felt a call to action. History may be written by the letter writers, but it's made by people who didn't have the good sense to be patient and stay put.

Freedom Riders delves into the amazing constellation of events that transformed a group of twelve scrappy activists, barely on anyone's radar, to a phenomenon that over the course of six months made the world hold its breath while fundamental political, social and cultural ideologies were put to the test in the hills of Alabama and Mississippi.

Director Stanley Nelson (The Murder of Emmett Till, Jonestown: The Life and Death of the Peoples Temple) looks at the role international bad publicity (an outraged German news program proclaims: "In the land of Ernest Hemingway, some still struggle for basic rights!"') played in getting a reaction from President Kennedy, the different ethical issues covering the events the black members of the press faced, the collusion of the KKK with police and members of the national media, activists' strategies for communication in a time before Facebook, different reactions within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) over Martin Luther King Jr's decision not to join the Freedom Ride and the bizarre political powerplay between the Safety Commissioner and Governor of Alabama that (inadvertently) saved hundreds of lives.

But for my money, the best anecdotes in the film are those that showcase John Seigenthaler's (Attorney General's Robert Kennedy's assistant) personal awe of Diane Nash. Nash, a leader in SNCC, led the second round of Riders after the first wave had been beaten so severely they were convinced they would die if they continued. One imagines the (now very comic) scene of the entire Kennedy White House in a lather trying to negotiate with the Riders to cease their operations, expecting to be put on the phone with a hardened Teamster-type and instead getting the demure but steely Nash.

Freedom Riders is an engaging, thorough elaboration on a hugely historic event that averages about a paragraph in a typical public high school textbook. It will surely reach a considerable and appreciative audience on PBS on the 50th anniversary of the events when it airs as part of the American Experience program in 2011.

This film also provides an interesting prism through which to examine Fair Use regulations. Nelson has made six films that wound up screening on PBS, each casting a spotlight on little known or regretful moments in American history. Nelson does so with photographs and newsreel footage that is rare and astronomically expensive to license for commercial use. Because of these costs, only film-makers backed by institutions like PBS can access these artifacts and tell these stories without resorting to puppet reenactments.

Since television is considered too bureaucratic and narrow in focus to appeal to film-makers trying push the boundaries of non-fiction storytelling, there exists a chasm in the documentary world between the film-makers who view themselves as artists first and film-makers who desperately want to tell these stories now while some of the participants are still alive to share their firsthand accounts. Ultimately the real losers in this battle are viewers, whose lives could be enriched by further understanding how our world has been shaped and where it's going. History is most accurately reflected when as many voices as possible get involved in the telling of stories.

As long as I'm on a soapbox, it's also draconian United States copyright laws that keep touchstone films like the Civil Rights documentary Eyes on the Prize out of reach of any audience. I, however, gleefully pirated Eyes footage for my college film, paying tribute to Nash. 

Freedom Riders is a real life David and Goliath story that will exhilarate all audiences. However, it's in that very exhilaration that also exists a painful reminder of just how cut off we are from our own history because of greed-driven, fundamentally anti-democratic protectionist laws.

Freedom Riders is screening January 21-31 at the Sundance Film Festival.

Comments

[Sklopfer]

"History may be written by the letter writers, but it's made by people who didn't have the good sense to be patient and stay put." This is a comment that I will store and use for a very long time. As the writer of Emmett Till history, and having spent years in the Mississippi Delta tracking down this story, I can attest to its accuracy. Over and over I have been amazed at the tenacity of regular people who didn't stay put or be patient from the days of slavery until the modern civil rights movement. Their stories are amazing. I think often, for instance, of Rev. Horace Germany who didn't stay put, but who left the Midwest to live in Northern Mississippi where he was nearly beaten to death for trying to start a small school to train young African Americans to help poor black Delta families survive by becoming agriculturalists. It was the white Citizens Councils that finally slowed him down. But even in the end, his accomplishments were great. As were the accomplishments of Fannie Lou Hamer, Aaron Henry, Amzie Moore, Cleve McDowell, Birdia Keglar, Adlena Hamlett and so many more unsung heroes. All beautiful people who put patience aside; this comment adds real meaning to those of us who humbly collect their magnificent stories.

[Mari Lisenbe]

Great Piece!

This must be a nice film!