New Documentary Features Joan Little’s Fight for Justice

Joan Little never planned to make history. She just wanted justice. 

But in 1975, she became the first woman in the country acquitted for using deadly force to resist sexual assault. Her chances at victory had been slim. The 21-year-old Black woman had been accused of killing Clarence Alligood, a white guard in the Beaufort County Jail, the previous year. She’d been jailed as she appealed convictions for felony theft that had netted her a minimum 14-year prison sentence. 

Law enforcement officials alleged she stabbed Alligood multiple times with an icepick and then escaped from the jail. Little said earlier that day she’d declined Alligood’s sexual advances, and he’d returned to attack her, armed with an icepick. At some point during the struggle, Little said she was able to grab the icepick and stab the 62-year-old guard. Alligood had a reputation for coercing female inmates into having sex with him. 

Little’s case got international attention and drew a broad coalition of supporters representing Black radical activists, feminists, LGBTQ advocates, and prison abolitionists. Among her supporters were Larry Little, (no relation to Joan Little) co-founder of the Winston-Salem chapter of the Black Panther Party and later known for his advocacy to end Darryl Hunt’s wrongful conviction of murder; Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress; and civil rights activists Rosa Parks and Angela Davis. 

After her acquittal, Joan Little’s name faded into obscurity; she is still alive but has not spoken publicly for years. But New York-based documentary filmmaker Yoruba Richen, who co-directed the PBS film American Coup: Wilmington 1898, is committed to introducing her story to a new generation with Free Joan Little, a short documentary that will be shown April 19 at the RiverRun International Film Festival in Winston-Salem. 

The Assembly recently spoke to Richen about her film. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

What drew you to Joan Little’s story? 

I came upon her story when I was making my feature documentary The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. That film, which is on Peacock, tells the sort of hidden story of Rosa Parks’ lifelong activism and commitment to justice. Part of that story is her lifelong commitment to highlighting and investigating sexual crimes against Black women starting in the 1940s, most famously with the Recy Taylor case in Alabama.

When she was in Detroit after the Montgomery [Alabama] bus boycott, she found out about the Joan Little trial and started a Free Joan Little committee in Detroit. 

When I discovered that story and I discovered the archive–and that it was not even that long ago and that people were active and Joan Little was still alive–I knew I wanted to do a larger film about it.

As you were researching the documentary, was there anything that surprised you?

I think a couple of things. The fact that she was so young when this happened, 21. What really struck me from the beginning was that it became this international cause célèbre. And that it brought together these different diverse movements at the time and that she won the case. I mean, this was the ’70s in the South. 

It garnered so much press and attention and then was kind of, you know, lost to history. It’s a little bit kind of emblematic of the work that I do in uncovering these stories that have either been lost or suppressed. 

Did you reach out to her?

We did. We tried over the course of the years of making the film, and we had people like Larry Little and Karen Bethea-Shields [one of Joan Little’s attorneys] and Christina Greene [the author of a book on the case] reach out to her. So she was aware of the film, and she’s aware that it’s out, but she has not spoken publicly in 30 years. And as Karen says, it’s very hard to relive the worst, most traumatic time of your life, and I respect that. I do hope she will eventually see the film, but she is aware of it. 

Why is her story so important?

The fact that she spoke out about sexual assault in prison in jail was not something that many people did. Speaking about sexual assault or rape at all was, especially at that time, not something that survivors did. I mean, women were ashamed. … Karen has a line in the film where she said the community and white people thought that Black women were not rapable. And that has a long history in this country. So speaking up at that time was extremely brave. 

And again, she was so young. To tell your story and to own your story and speak out is something that we can take inspiration from today.

I also think the fact that these different movements came together to fight for justice at a time when it was very unlikely that it would happen. It’s also something that we can learn a lot from for today.

What are the lessons you hope people take from it today? 

I think Larry’s last line really says it so well: “We might not get everything we want in America, but we have to fight for everything that we get.” It’s super simple, but I think at a time when people feel demoralized, when they feel powerless, when they feel the attacks are daily, that her case shows that there’s unlikely victories when we can come together and do what’s right and fight for justice.