Counter Histories: Rock Hill

At 53 minutes, Counter Histories: Rock Hill may be a good start for those who know little about the racial turmoil of the 1960s. This is not comprehensive, nor is it meant to be. The filmmaker makes a laudable effort to work around the problem many documentaries with lots of interviews face. "Talking heads" here are accompanied by dramatizations of some of the events from 1961. Clips from the time are also used well to vary the visuals. But many of the clips are edited into short, multi-second bits that may not convey the message the filmmakers hope for. It takes at least some familiarity with the historical material to understand the archival images that are flitting by. And the decision to interview the young actors who play the Friendship Nine counter-protestors doesn't add much to the piece. Likewise are mentions of the fact that in South Carolina, a great deal of money was spent on transporting White kids to school and almost none spent on transporting Black kids to school. Against the backdrop of lynching and other murders, this seems like an odd statistic to choose to highlight. Not that it isn't another true, segregationist outrage, but does it belong in a documentary that is less than an hour long? This gives the documentary a disjointed feel.

A brief, grainy moving image of Black workers picking cotton reminds us that slavery is the original American sin against Black people. A Friendship Nine survivor provides one of the film's most moving moments when he says that despite all he's been put through by American racism, he still believes America is "the best country in the world" and that he's "proud to be an American."