9/11 Kids: Hot Docs film on CBC follows the adult lives of a Grade 2 class who were symbols of terrorist trauma
April 21, 2020
With the postponement of this year’s Hot Docs International Film Festival because of the coronavirus crisis, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation is airing a selection of films that would have been screened at this year’s festival. ‘
By Linda Barnard
Rating: B
The 16 pupils in Kay Daniels’ Grade 2 class at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla. have a unique shared memory of the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Even if they weren’t sure who he was — one thought Men in Black when the Secret Service detail showed up — the President of the United States was coming to their school just to hear them read.
President Bush gets the news about the World Trade Centre Towers while listening to The Pet Goat.
The documentary 9/11 Kids, by Toronto filmmaker and senior CTV news producer Elizabeth St. Philip, follows up with five of the now-adult little witnesses to history who were proudly reading The Pet Goat to President George W. Bush. They watched as a man came up and whispered in the President’s ear. This was later revealed as the moment Bush got the news a second plane had struck a World Trade Center tower.
Kids don’t miss anything. Even the six and seven-year-olds in the classroom knew something was up. Bush got all red in the face, one recalled. They knew they’d lost their important visitor’s attention.
Their recollections of earlier that morning were mostly about feeling special. They were the best readers in their school, so successful in improving their skills that Bush was visiting their classroom to hear them in action.
The pupils felt like celebrities, with cameras all around and last-minute haircuts and freshly pressed school outfits. Footage of the classroom event remains a key part of that terrible day’s narrative. It’s especially so for anyone who has seen Michael Moore’s 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 with its pivotal scene that tracks the long minutes Bush sat in front of the kids, looking stunned and helpless.
St. Philip follows up with the students nearly 20 years after 9/11. How did that day shape their lives, their view of their country and their futures?
In place of a narrator, local radio host “Uncle Ronnie” Phelps acts as community historian, philosopher and narrative guide. From his place behind the station microphone, Phelps provides context about the rise of racism in post 9/11 America and social issues in the predominantly African-American neighbourhood where most Booker Elementary students lived.
The pupils are now in their mid-20s. Many are parents. Online business entrepreneur Dinasty Brown runs a social media marketing company and coaches young women in starting online businesses. She proudly drives a white Mercedes. La’Damien Smith joined the military and remains edgy about future terrorist attacks. Lazaro Dubrocq is an engineer whose family lives in the home he brought for them. Had he been born now, he wouldn’t be an American, he says. His Cuban parents, who came to the U.S. after living in Mexico, could never have immigrated in President Donald Trump’s America.
Once a promising athlete, Tyler Radkey says he was seduced by fast money and bad choices. He’s preparing for a court appearance.
Natalia Pinkney Jones is an effervescent woman with a seemingly endless wig wardrobe and big dreams she’s had trouble fulfilling. Charming and funny, she’s convinced she is destined for greatness, whether in her living room or a church pew. I wish I could find a way to bottle that ebullient essence, especially now.
They introduce themselves by holding up the same school group photo, pointing to their face. Former classmates share impressions of their Grade 2 pals, an entertaining bit of business to set up each profile.
Teacher Kay Daniels stands out for the palpable love of her students and her devotion to their success inside and out of the classroom. She began her morning on Sept. 11 proud of the “16 darlings in front of me” and their reading skills. Soon, she would become a voice of strength and reassuring calm for them, often repeating the lyrics of the Sounds of Blackness gospel song “Hold On (Change is Coming).”
Never give up, she tells them. It feels prescient when, at a time when Covid-19 has caused 10 times more American deaths than 9/11, Daniels predicts that adversity will come to them again. They’ll make it through, she says. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I love you,” one of the adult pupils tells her in an emotional reunion. “I love you more,” she responds. And there’s no doubt she means it.
9/11 Kids: Written and directed by Elizabeth St. Philip. Thursday, April 23, 8 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem; 9 p.m. on Documentary Channel