Spike Lee documentary on racial protests at MU premieres near campus

Acclaimed filmmaker Spike Lee’s new documentary, which chronicles the racial protests that engulfed the University of Missouri campus last fall and drew national attention after a resultant boycott by the Tigers’ football team, premiered Wednesday a half mile from campus.

“2 Fists Up: We Gon Be Alright,” which was presented by ESPN as part of the “Spike Lee’s Lil’ Joints” series, featured interviews with members of the Concerned Student 1950 protest group.

The hourlong documentary — which opens with iconic images, such as the George Zimmerman trial in Florida and Eric Garner’s death at the hands of New York City police officers as well as Michael Brown’s death and the riots in Ferguson, Mo. — dissects the story of entrenched racism on college campuses through the eyes of the students who led the protests in November that led to the ouster of University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin.

ESPN Films producer Marquis Daisy, who also produced and directed the “Tigers United” documentary about Michael Sam, said the documentary’s aim is to further the national conversation about race.

“From an ESPN Films perspective, we just hope that really it opens dialogue and people will engage in conversation following this film,” Daisy said. “We feel like this film is very honest and Spike Lee, with his unapologetic approach, we felt was perfect.”

University of Missouri System interim president Michael Middleton, who replaced Wolfe, and several MU faculty members, including former communications professor Melissa Click, also appeared in Lee’s film.

It was screened publicly for the first time at the Missouri Theatre in Columbia before an estimated crowd of 800, which broke into spontaneous claps and cheers throughout the screening.

The film explores the origins of the Black Lives Matter movement and how it helped prompt Concerned Student 1950 to grow from a group outraged by Michael Brown’s death into a movement that shook the foundations of higher education.

There was, of course, a section devoted to the hunger strike by Jonathan Butler, one of the founding members of Concerned Student 1950.

It also examined why he chose such an extreme tactic after previous attempts to start a conversation on campus about race, such as the protest at the homecoming parade, failed to produce results.

There was a lengthy treatment of the Missouri football team’s involvement, which resulted in national attention that brought a swift end to Wolfe’s tenure as president, but no football players appeared on camera in the film.

The loudest cheers of the evening were reserved for Click, the professor who was fired after she was caught on video in a confrontation with Columbia police at the homecoming parade and later called for “some muscle” to remove a student journalist covering the November protests.

Lee introduced Middleton before the screening started and thanked him for his support of the project.

“I called him up and from the jump, from the get-go, he said, ‘Spike, whatever you need, I will help you with your piece,’ ” Lee said.

“Spike Lee, everybody knows, is the man,” Middleton said. “When he called, how do you not support what he wants to do?”

Middleton, who was seated next to Lee, and founding members of the Concerned Student 1950 movement — including Butler, who publicly distanced himself from the group last month — were VIP audience members.

Two Tiger football players — junior safety Anthony Sherrils, a Hogan Prep graduate, and junior wide receiver J’Mon Moore, whose meeting with Butler on campus sparked the players’ boycott — also had reserved seats, as did 21 Missouri legislators.

Sherrils was not spotted in the crowd, but Moore and roughly 10 of his Tigers teammates attended the screening.

A half-hour version of the documentary will debut at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. It will be screened April 15 and again April 21-23.

ESPN Films will release a 22-minute digital version May 31 that is set to air June 3 on ESPN.

Lee, who also taught a master class Wednesday at MU’s prestigious journalism school, visited Columbia last month for a local film festival and conducted numerous interviews amid ongoing protests.

ESPN described “2 Fists Up” as “an examination of how the Black Lives Matter movement sparked activism at the University of Missouri, its football team and across the rest of the United States,” in an email last month.

Missouri football players announced a boycott Nov. 7 on Twitter in solidarity with Butler.

Within two days of the football team’s involvement, which jeopardized a win against BYU at Arrowhead Stadium, University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin stepped down.

This story was originally published April 6, 2016 at 10:40 PM with the headline "Spike Lee documentary on racial protests at MU premieres near campus."