If it hadn't been an appalling case of Jim Crow justice, her tale — subject of "Hope & Redemption: The Lena Baker Story," a film playing this weekend — would have titillated the juiciest tabloids.
Born in 1901 to sharecroppers in rural Southwest Georgia, she had a dream to head north. With a taste for whiskey and few options, though, she made money in her 20s "entertaining gentlemen." Rounded up for prostitution, she was sentenced to 10 months hard labor.
By all accounts, prison sobered her up. By her early 40s, she was raising three children, living with her mother and working as a laundress.
When the call came to care for a recuperating older white man, it seemed like a blessing, a stable income. What came next still shocks and confuses — and reveals human nature and society in many of its broken facets.
Ernest Knight — renamed Elliot Arthur in the film to avoid lawsuits — was known in Cuthbert, Ga., for his abusive personality and alcoholism. He soon developed a co-dependent relationship with his nursemaid, fueled by whiskey and sex.
At his son's insistence, the old man moved to Florida; Baker followed. When she returned to Georgia, he followed her back.
On the night of April 30, 1944, Baker shot Knight and reported it to the police as self-defense. She was convicted of murder by a jury of 12 white men and sentenced to die in the electric chair, becoming the only woman executed in Georgia's history. (In 2005, she was pardoned posthumously by the State of Georgia.)
The movie's writer, director and producer is Ralph Wilcox, a veteran TV actor. About five years ago, after several years making documentaries about missionaries in Africa, he moved to Southwest Georgia.
There he met Lena Bond Philips, who'd written a novel about Baker. Everything soon fell into place. With funding from the Rice Foundation and its director, C. Barton Rice, who lives in metro Atlanta, Wilcox embarked on filming.
"The Lena Baker Story" cost $2.1 million to make and stars Tichina Arnold (Rochelle in "Everybody Hates Chris").
The film premiered and sold out at last year's Atlanta Film Festival; it also screened at Cannes in France to favorable notices. Still not distributed nationally, however, the indie film returns for a limited Atlanta run.
We caught up with Wilcox as he was preparing for the local theatrical release of Baker's tragic story.
Q: Since the Atlanta Film Festival's very successful screening, what's happened?
A: Some studios were interested, but we didn't get the right offer. I didn't want this film to fall through the cracks, so I held it back to try again. Our objective [this weekend] is to get the [audience] numbers and go back to the distributors to get a better deal. If we can't, I'll release the film myself.
Q: You're more than a filmmaker now, with a movie sound studio that's part of a professional training program.
A: And that studio is in the middle of a cotton field! Georgia again wants to get back into the film industry, and most of my cast and crew come from Southwest Georgia.
Q: You've said you hope the picture helps "heal the wounds," but at the same time Lena Baker's incendiary story is likely to stir things up.
A: This movie should resonate with everyone. Healing begins when we feel the pain. Once you've dealt with the anger and guilt, then you can start to move on. This is one chapter of a long and painful history in America. If it's painful, that's a good thing.
Q: Your principal investor, producer Barton Rice, told me "people will take from it where they're coming from," so the central line might be racial injustice or alcoholism or the abuse of women, or even a kind of sex slavery.
A: I don't see this story as just about race. It's about a flawed woman — we're all wrecks in the eyes of God — and her ruined dreams and ambitions, but that she can still find redemption. She knew she'd be redeemed. I allude to the sordid relationship they [Baker and Knight] had, but this film can be viewed by young people, it can reach a spiritual audience.
FILM SCREENING
"Hope & Redemption: The Lena Baker Story"
The filmmakers and some actors will attend. Q&A session follows the film. 7 p.m. Friday. $7.50-$10. Screenings throughout the week at Movies ATL, 3760 Princeton Lakes Parkway S.W., Atlanta. 678-513-4400, www.lenabakerthe
movie.com.
"This movie should resonate with everyone. Healing begins when we feel the pain. Once you've dealt with the anger and guilt, then you can start to move on. This is one chapter of a long and painful history in America. If it's painful, that's a good thing."
Ralph Wilcox, writer-director-producer of "Hope & Redemption:
The Lena Baker Story"
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