2 Fists Up

When University of Missouri football players threatened to boycott their game with Brigham Young University last November unless president Tim Wolfe resigned, they made news far beyond the sports pages and Columbia, Missouri. But that was only one chapter in a tale that began long before that – a tale that director Spike Lee unspools in this Lil’ Joints documentary for ESPN Films. Yes, the athletes played a significant role in forcing Wolfe’s resignation, but it was really the female organizers of the Concerned Student 1950 movement, as well as a man, Jonathan Butler, willing to starve himself, who stood tallest in the confrontation with institutional racism at Mizzou. Indeed, their courage and resolve brings hope to the message chanted at the end of the film: “We gonna be all right.”