4 Little Girls

The bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963 was sort of the 9/11 of its day. Its interesting this bombing was on September 15 only four days later. It was a crime that shook the nation and the world. Its still in the news! There was a man who only recently was convicted for his role in it. Spike Lee does an amazing job in bringing this tragedy back to us. In interviews with the families of these girls and various others. The one that got me is the one with George Wallace. I thought it was really pathetic the way he kept bringing his butler into the picture and saying that he had a black friend. If anyone symbolized the bigotry and violence in the South during this period, its Wallace and I think to show him in this was wrong. By the way, the song at the opening when they show these poor little girl's graves will haunt you for a long time.

Whenever I happen to be in a group of people engaged in a discussion on race, whether it has been inspired by something currently in the news, or by an article or even a popular show on TV or a movie, there's always at least one person who asks, "With all the progress that's been made, why do black and Jewish people still put so much emphasis on race and prejudice?"

To answer that question for those people, no matter how well-intentioned they are in their ignorance, Spike Lee has made this film. You cannot be human and not be moved by the terrible story of the sacrifice that these little girls made, nor the lasting effect it had on everyone concerned. In its own way, this story is every bit as important as SCHINDLER'S LIST, and in the wake of recent events--church bombings, racial profiling by the police, the dubious success rate of our penal system turning young black men into hardened thugs into corpses--it is more important now than ever before that stories like these are told, to help us understand why we can only change the direction our generation seems to be headed in, by looking back at where we've been and what it cost us to get to where we are now.

Lee's film does an excellent job of bringing the girls to life. It is very easy to lump the four girls together into one entity, as the "Eyes on the Prize" documentary did, but Spike Lee was able to set them apart as individuals and shows the grief felt by the friends and relatives to this day. However, the documentary seems to tell only about two-thirds of the story. Some of the nitty-gritty details about the bombing and the investigation are quickly summarized in order to bring the film to a quick conclusion. If I didn't know from other sources, I would not have known, for example, the nature of the bomb -- was it set by a timer? Thrown into the church? (I know from news accounts that it was the latter, but you would not have known if you were uninitiated and just learning through this documentary.) There are also questions that come to mind that Lee leaves unanswered: What was the reaction of the white community in the area (I know, for example, that the bombing was certainly not unanimously cheered by the white south)? How was the bombing investigated? What eventually led the investigators to the guilty parties? The story of the 15 year search for the bomber and his accomplices (in fact, the search went on longer than that, even into the year 2001) is an important part of the story. A film as powerful as this should have taken the time to go into every nook and cranny of the story. Yes, it was excellent. Yes, it should have won the Documentary award for that year. Yes, it brought a tear to my eye. But there could have been so much more, and could have made the story that much more powerful.

Spike Lee did an excellent job with this documentary. I too, was extremely shocked that it did not win the Oscar the year it was nominated. One of the victims was my cousin, my fathers favorite niece at that. Growing up and learning about this tragedy first hand was very enlightening and yet tragic all at the same time. This film definitely captures the pain and suffering of my family and of the entire black community that lived through such racially biased times in Birmingham, Alabama. I think that this film should be seen by all, and not just during Black History month. In my opinion, there is no justification for the actions of those involved and it took some time and patience but they too had to pay for their crimes.

I watched this documentary yesterday afternoon. I remember learning about the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing (its importance in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s) but I never saw how the effects on the people whose lives were permanently altered and not just from reaping the benefits like we do today. This documentary opened showed this viewpoint.

It brought tears to my eyes to listen and see the relatives of those four girls who were killed. Unless you have a blind eye, a deaf ear, and a hard-a** heart, it is impossible to not be moved when you see these girls' sisters and mothers describe that Sunday morning when Addie, Denise, Maxine, and Carole were killed. I could see the hurt in the mothers' eyes and hear pain in their voices when talking about their babies.

I highly recommend watching this documentary. Spike Lee did an outstanding job.