Click to enlarge photos.By Elliott Minor
Associated Press Writer
COLQUITT - The only woman ever to die in Georgia's electric chair - a victim of racial injustice in the Jim Crow-era South - is the focus of a movie that makes its
world premiere this month at the 32nd annual Atlanta Film Festival.
"This is one I had to do first," said veteran actor Ralph Wilcox, 57, who wrote and directed "The Lena Baker Story" and produced it at a new 22,000 square-foot movie studio in rural southwestern Georgia.
"This film ... dealt with four issues that are really continuing today - abuse, addiction, the death penalty and the fourth and foremost is our faith," Wilcox said. "It was her faith that gave Lena her courage and fortitude."
The film is one of more-than 150 movies, documentaries and animations selected from some 1,600 submissions to be featured at the festival, which runs April 10-19 at Atlanta's Landmark Midtown Art Cinema, said festival executive director Gabriel Wardell.
"One of the reasons we choose it for opening night is that it is such an accomplished film, especially for a first-time director," said Wardell. "It's elegantly shot. It really captures the period, but also the beautiful landscape in southwest Georgia - cotton fields and sunsets. And it also has top-notch performances from a remarkable cast, especially Tichina Arnold in the lead role."
Arnold is cast in the role of Baker, a black housekeeper in Cuthbert who became romantically involved with an abusive, pistol-toting, gristmill operator, who was white. Baker and the miller, played by actor Peter Coyote, are portrayed as drunks, mired in an interracial relationship that was taboo in the segregated South.
Others featured in the film are Beverly Todd as Baker's mother, Michael Rooker as the sheriff who arrested Baker and Chris Burns, the miller's son. All three urged Baker to break off the relationship with her hateful lover.
At her trial, Baker, a mother of three, said the miller held her against her will during a drinking binge and that she shot him with his own pistol after he grabbed an iron bar and threatened to hit her.
The jury of 12 white men didn't buy her self-defense argument. During the one-day trial on Aug. 14, 1944, her court-appointed lawyer didn't call a single defense witness.
The jury found her guilty of first-degree murder and a white judge sentenced her to die.
Her attorney filed an appeal, but withdrew from the case, leaving the appeal to be dismissed.
Baker's final words, shortly before her execution at the Reidsville State Penitentiary on March 5, 1945, were, "What I done, I did in self-defense. I have nothing against anyone ... I am ready to meet my God."
An undertaker buried her body behind the small country church near Cuthbert, where she had attended services and was a choir member. Her grave remained unmarked for more than five decades, until the congregation raised $250 for a cement slab.
At the request of Baker's family, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles granted her a pardon in 2005. The board did not find her innocent of the crime, but instead found that the decision to deny her clemency in 1945 was a grievous error.
Wilcox, who is black and spent more than six years in Africa producing documentaries on the work of missionaries, said he hopes the movie will give young people a better understanding of history and help them make responsible decisions in a world where atrocities and disasters still occur.
"I didn't want to vilify anyone ... or the system that was bad," said the Milwaukee-born filmmaker. "There are the villains, but also the saviors, black and white. It is a lesson in the evolution of how we go trough tyranny and struggle. It tells a story about a chapter in our history from which we can evolve."
Upon his return from Africa, Wilcox said he had a dream of making movies in rural Georgia. He eventually found a home in Colquitt, about 180 miles southwest of Atlanta, which already had a thriving arts council famous for its folk play, "Swamp Gravy," a Cultural Olympiad Event during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
With grants and donations, he built a multi-million-dollar movie studio in a former cotton patch, and like the arts council, hopes to use filmmaking as a vehicle for economic development in a rural area that has struggled to attract traditional industries.
The Lena Baker movie will be in distribution by the end of the year, Wilcox said.
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Posted Comments
The ONLY thing that I see resulting from this and other "documentaries" like it, is further widening the gap between the races.
I agree. Let it go. It was a bad chapter from the past. But that's what it is... the PAST.
On the contrary, M.L, I believe that the truth in this situation will not only serve to educate black, white and "other" citizens, but that it may also serve as an educational opportunity and may indeed assist in bridging the racial divide.
I'm not sure if the AP coined the headline for this article or if it was put together by the MDJ, but the visual created by 'featuring a victim of an electric chair at a film festival' is not very pleasing. Improved wording would have been helpful.
If that happened to a member of my family, I wouldn't want to "Let it go" and forget about it. Would you?
First, what a tragic and painfully informative history lesson this movie tells. Acknowledging the sad and long chapter of our nation's history of racial intimidation and injustice not only serves to prevent similar injustices from happening again but also serves to ensure that we as a nation THOROUGHLY consider all of our actions today....and which of these actions our descendants will look back upon with the same measure of shame that we look back upon this event. Contrary to some opinions already expressed here which would rather gloss over this sad chapter, to be able to rationally and impartially measure our nation's history in this way is perhaps one of the healthiest things any true patriot can do to help improve this country. We are all be indebted to Mr Wilcox for his fortitude in making this documentary come to life.
While watching this movie I began to cry out for Ms. Lena Baker, my heart aches for her children and family still to this day over 50 years later. I would like to know what happen to the judge, court appointed attorney and who the 12 men were on the jury. Are they still alive and what happen in their lives. My soul aches for the many Lena Bakers out their and I don't want to watch or read anymore stories like this but I know I must in order to understand why the world is the way it is. I love the lord and he took Lena to finally give her peace and so that her story could be told to millions. Thank you for your vision.
It shouldn't make the gaps wider it should make the gaps close. Your PAST is what makes you the person today. It's just you all ignorance that would make you place that statement on here and what is causing the gaps of racism bigger!!!!