Hello news junkies… Wonk the Vote here with a new feature at TM.com that I hope you enjoy!

Tonight, my recommendation for you is the PBS Independent Lens documentary that aired this week  — Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock.

The Louisville Film Society also screened the film at the Dreamland Film Center earlier last month. From what appears to be the press release of that screening:

“As a black woman who was a feminist before the term was invented, Daisy Bates refused to accept her assigned place in society. ‘Daisy Bates: First Lady of Little Rock’ tells the story of her life and public support of nine black students who registered to attend the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, which culminated in a constitutional crisis — pitting a president against a governor and a community against itself. Unconventional, revolutionary, and egotistical, Daisy Bates reaped the rewards of instant fame, but paid dearly for it.”

Can I just say that I am so glad PBS chose to kick black history month off by spotlighting a *feminist* leader of the civil rights movement? (The late Dorothy Height would have been an excellent choice too!)

Funny how women always pay “dearly” for ego in anything political, but today’s Newts and Romneys and–yes, Obamas, too–all self-inflate with reckless abandon and don’t seem to suffer for it all that much–or have their names disappeared from the history books.

Contra Costa Times, via Kansas City Star:

If you were to compile a quick, off-the-top-of-your-head list of civil rights-era heroes (no Googling allowed), Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and a few others might immediately spring to mind.

But Daisy Bates? Probably not – despite the fact that she played a key role in the Little Rock integration crisis of 1957 and that she, like King, spoke at the landmark March on Washington.

Eurweb.com has a great quote from producer-director Sharon La Cruise:

“I just couldn’t understand, because I studied history and I thought I knew it extensively, especially African American history. I didn’t know why I didn’t know anything about her,” said La Cruise. “So I read her autobiography. I wrote her a letter. I said basically what I’ve just said, to her, that I didn’t understand why I didn’t know about her, and I want to know more about her, and I thought her life would make this incredible film.”

More from La Cruise via her op-ed at Womens E-News:

I became fascinated by the thought of that 8-year-old child who in one day learned she was an orphan and realized that being black meant you lived in a world where your life was insignificant. I wrote Bates and told her how much I admired her and thought her life story should be turned into a documentary film. She responded through her attorney that she would love to explore the idea further.

I was beyond thrilled to hear back, but then realized I had no idea how to produce a full-length documentary. I’d studied at New York University’s School of Journalism but didn’t have a lot of filmmaking experience. So I wasted two years dreaming of producing a documentary, not realizing how ill Bates was. On Nov. 4, 1999, I woke up to hear NPR reading Bates’ obituary. I was devastated.

Five years later though, in 2004, I decided to make the documentary after all. I’d gained experience by then and thought I was ready. But it took me seven long years to complete the film, as I worked on other projects and scraped by on funding. I was the director, producer and bottle-washer in one. I managed to hire some researchers, but did most of it myself. Kind friends helped me out on the script.

Dorothy Height’s memoir is on my current reading list and so her story is fresh on my mind–as is Shirley Sherrod’s encounter with the current Administration. I’m struck by the similarities of all these women’s stories–Daisy Bates’, Shirley Sherrod’s, Dorothy Height’s. They were all spurred to action by simply facing the inequality and injustice that they had faced since childhood, head-on in their adulthood. Their refusal to settle for less than their “inalienable” rights is the quintessential story of the ordinary American hero(ine).

They are each of them Rosa Parks on that bus, just having had enough of being treated inferiorly–but each with a unique story of her own to tell, stories that deserve to be heard.

From the Gray Lady’s review of the doc:

Ms. La Cruise injects first-person musings into the film that sit awkwardly, but she also finds side stories that elevate her movie above mere hagiography. Ms. Bates’s aggressiveness on integration was divisive for the state’s black leaders, and that she was a woman meant she was pushing against more than just racial barriers.

I am reminded here of what Dorothy Heights so eloquently termed the

“triple bind of racism, sexism and poverty.”

SF Weekly echoes the Gray Lady’s take on La Cruise and her Daisy Bates doc:

​In the process, Cruise also uncovers a personality as complex as the era — a charismatic, self-taught firebrand whose need of drink led to three early strokes and whose need of attention often led to alienation, even from those she would help. In some ways this is a tragedy that culminates in a state holiday, but we are left with an authentic heroine who has not been whitewashed.

This is where the political girl-junkie in me says, “Squee!”

PBS has a trailer and a few clips up here, and if you’d like to watch the entire documentary, it will be up for free for your viewing, for the next two weeks.

Also, the Zinn Education Project has a great related lesson plan–Warriors Don’t Cry: Connecting History, Literature, and Our Lives–that you might want to check out, especially you educators amongst the TM.com readership.