Meet the Voices

• Yoruba Richen, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and the director and producer of Free Joan Little. Follow her on Instagram and Facebook.
• And your host, Carmen Rios, feminist superstar and Ms. consulting editor. Follow her on Twitter, Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky and read her work in Ms.

Further Reading From the Ms. Archives

• “A Landmark Self-Defense Case in the Age of Mass Incarceration: A New Documentary Tells Joan Little’s Story,” by Carmen Rios. Winter 2026.
• “Joan Little: The Dialectics of Rape,” by Angela Davis. June 1975.

More Links & Resources

• Learn more about Free Joan Little and connect with the film on Instagram.
• Get tickets to a screening of Free Joan Little at National Sawdust on Nov. 22.
• Explore bonus content from every episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward, including full interviews with every guest!
• Want to dig deeper? You can explore an interactive timeline of Ms. history.

Episode Transcript

[THEME MUSIC FADE UP + OUT]

Carmen Rios: Hi, y’all! I’m popping in to your feeds today with a bonus episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward — the Ms. Studios podcast that traces the intertwined history of Ms. magazine and the feminist movement it has given voice to for over 50 years.

I’m your host, feminist superstar and Ms. consulting editor Carmen Rios.

Devoted listeners may recall that in Episode Four, which explored the history of modern feminist activism around gender-based violence, I shared insights from a landmark piece in the June 1975 issue of Ms. written by Angela Davis — now Distinguished Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. 

In “Joan Little: The Dialectics of Rape” Davis laid bare how race, gender, and class intersect in matters of sexual and carceral violence, and have for centuries — and called on feminists to name, acknowledge and organize around those critical intersections. 

“Racism and male supremacy have to be projected in their dialectical unity,” she wrote. “In the case of the raped Black woman, they are mutually reinforcing.”

Joan Little was an incarcerated woman serving time for nonviolent offenses who had been charged with murder and threatened with the death penalty after her jailer was found dead in her cell. After a week-long manhunt for Little, who fled Beaufort County Jail after the altercation, she turned herself in — and spoke truth to power. The state and the media reported that Little had lured that man into her cell to kill him and escape. Little instead declared that he had sexually assaulted her that night, under the threat of violence, and that she had fought back in self-defense. She challenged the murder charges — and, in the process, challenged the entire system.

Little was a poor Black woman, and the only woman in the entire facility. Her jailer was a white man. But in the end, she prevailed. 

Just months after Davis’ piece hit newsstands, Little became the first woman in U.S. history to be acquitted for using deadly force to resist sexual assault. 

That was due, in part, to a massive organizing effort that emerged across movements — uniting the Black Power, feminist, and anti-carceral movements of the 1970s in historic fashion in support of Little’s case. 

I recently spoke with Peabody-award-winning documentary filmmaker Yoruba Richen, whose latest short, FREE JOAN LITTLE, ensures that this incredible story doesn’t fade from our collective memory. The documentary, which premiered Nov 12 and 12 at DOC NYC, was produced in partnership with Retro Report, an independent nonprofit documentary newsroom. The Winter 2025 issue of Ms. includes a piece by yours truly on Free Joan Little, but today I’m sharing my conversation with Richen, in full, about her journey to bringing Little’s history to the screen — and the urgency of telling this story at this particular moment in time.

[Transition Music]

Carmen Rios: Yoruba, thank you so much for being here, for taking the time to talk to me. I’m very excited to talk to you about this documentary, Free Joan Little.

You’ve said that you first encountered Joan’s story, the story about this case, while you were making your feature documentary, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks. I’m curious if you remember that moment of discovery? How did you encounter Joan Little’s story, and what was it about this story that made you want to bring this history to life on the screen?

Yoruba Richen: I actually do remember exactly when we got the archival footage about her case. My film, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, was based on a book by the same name, by a professor and writer, historian, Jeanne Theoharis, and we worked very closely with Jeanne in figuring out what we were going to include in the film and helping us find archival footage and what was important and all of that stuff, and she had told us about the Joan Little case, and we knew that an important part of Rosa’s story was her work around sexual violence against Black women.

The Recy Taylor case is one of the more famous cases that she worked on in the 1940s, of a Black woman who was raped by white men. A big coalition formed around her case in the 1940s to justice for Recy, to bring these men to justice. They never were brought to justice, but Rosa Parks was one of the investigators of Recy’s story, who talked to Recy, and who was part of that coalition, which included, you know, white communists, Black activists.

Now, 30 years later is the case of Joan Little, and when we heard about her work in the Joan Little trial, making that connection between what Rosa was doing in the 1940s and in the 1970s, that was a theme throughout her life. So, we knew it was important to include the Joan Little story in the film, and I had never heard of it before, and when we were figuring out how to tell that story, we started looking for archival footage of this case, it was 1974 so it’s not that long ago, and I remember sitting in the office, at one point, and just, like, Googling and finding that there was all this footage that was out there, of Joan and her story, and I was amazed.

I knew, ultimately, for the Rosa Parks film, only a small piece is in that film, because we always have to make choices about how much we can include, but I always knew, from that moment, that I wanted to find out more about this story and bring that story to the screen as well, because it’s one of those stories that was hidden in plain sight, again, not that long ago; really brought together these disparate movements and had this amazing result.

Carmen Rios: And what was the journey to telling that story like? What went into making Free Joan Little? What has the process looked like for you?

Yoruba Richen: In 2023, Field of Vision, which is a journalistic organization that supports filmmakers and films, and If/Then, an initiative that they have for shorts, and NBC Studios had a call of submission for film teams to pitch their shorts at DOC NYC. So, we applied. We were accepted. We were one of six teams. I brought my producer, who was a producer on Rosa Parks, to team up with me. I also went to an organization that I have worked with before on another film called Retro Report. I worked with them on a film for Frontline called American Reckoning. Retro Report supports and produces work and partners on work that’s historical, but has resonance for contemporary times, and I had a great partnership with them before, and I went to them again, and I said, do you want to partner with me on this? Would you be interested? And immediately, they said yes.

So, we teamed up, and I mean, I could not have made this film without them. I’m so grateful for their support and their belief in the project. We got funding, a little bit of funding, to create a trailer that we were going to pitch at the DOC NYC, and the winner of that would get much more money, and I don’t know if they got distribution, but they would get more money. So, we put together our sizzle reel, which was, like, a three-minute sizzle reel. We were able to do some interviews with the money that they had awarded us, and then we pitched in October of 2023.

We did not win the pitch, but we got such great feedback from the audience and industry. After that, that we started to apply for funding. Our first funds were from Catapult, which ended up funding us at two different stages in the project. We got funding from the Southern Documentary Fund, from InMaat Foundation, and the Jonathan Logan Foundation, an economic hardship project, which has recently come in, and then, as I said, my partnership with Retro Report, they have put so much of their resources, from post-production resources, archival, that this could not have been made without them.

So, we were able to, with that funding, bring on an editor, and I guess we started in…was it July? Maybe early July? And we got to a rough cut with that editor, and then…with our editor that we’re working with, and then bringing on a composer and a graphics person, here we are. We are now almost ready to go online, and we will be premiering on November 12 at DOC NYC. It’s kind of full circle that that’s where we started and that’s where we’re premiering, so it feels really great.

Carmen Rios: This documentary is debuting at such a, for lack of a better word, challenging moment in US history, dark moment in US history, and it’s in a moment where a lot of the questions that are raised in this film are, unfortunately, more relevant than ever, right? We see the police state expanding. We see incarceration and very targeted mass incarceration happening in our streets. We see a more militarized police force, a more political police force.

Angela Davis’s 1975 piece in Ms. on this case notes that North Carolina, at the time, did have a disproportionate amount of political prisoners, as well, and of course, we know that women have been a fast-rising prison population over the last many years, and that racial justice continues to be a critical part of this conversation that, often, we’re not having at the level that we need to have it, there’s so much here that resonates in the current moment. What do you think made or makes Joan Little’s story so important to tell, to remember, in the midst of what we’re facing right now?

Yoruba Richen: One of the things that I think is most important is the erasure of history, right? The erasure of a history that’s hard, that’s difficult, and that often is about racial justice. That’s one thing, that we can’t let these forces take away our history and that our history is so important to understanding our present, as you just said. I think that Joan Little’s story is really resonant, and this is also why I wanted to make the film, because she spoke out, and at that time, you know, many of us — some of us remember, many of us do not remember the days when a rape victim, a rape survivor speaking out really did not happen. And as you see in the film, she was stigmatized, and she was blamed. But she had the courage and the support to tell her story, and I do think that that laid a groundwork for women and other survivors to tell their story and to speak out, in light of forces that may be aligned against them. I think we’re seeing this happen with the Jeffrey Epstein case. That women are not being silenced, and these are incredible forces that are aligning against them, that want them to just shut up, and I think Joan really laid the groundwork for that.

Also, too, as you said, I believe women are still the highest number of people getting put in prison, put in jail, and sexual abuse is rampant. We talk about that in the film, as well, the current-day issues and challenges that female prisoners have around sexual abuse. It really put on the map this understanding that this was a problem and that this happened in these spaces, where women are locked away, where women are thrown away, and that it’s a problem. Obviously, as I said, it’s still a problem, but Joan’s story, Joan’s case really brought it to the forefront.

Carmen Rios: Something that struck me in watching the documentary was having the opportunity to watch, because of the incredible way that you showcase, the intersectional movement that comes to support Little, and you get to see it coming to life, this patchwork, right, of different groups who have focused on different issues aligning and coming together to support Joan, to speak out about these issues, to make it clear that what happened to her was not acceptable and that she deserved justice.

And it’s exactly what Angela Davis wrote about in her essay for Ms. on this case, right? Was that what was required to free Joan Little was a united movement across racism and sexism and classism, and so many of the folks that you interview touch on that and talk about how it was a moment where intersectionality got put into practice in a very real way for a lot of people and the first chance that they had to witness something like that. That we can talk about more than one issue at once, at the same time, and it matters that we do.

Yoruba Richen: Yeah. Yeah.

Carmen Rios: In terms of what this history can offer activists, what lessons do you hope the documentary offers, and what lessons did you take away from hearing those inside baseball stories about how this people power came to be behind Joan, that played such a pivotal role in her case?

Yoruba Richen: That’s exactly it. You really saw intersectionality at work. What I take away from it is, that even in the times when forces seem so aligned — I mean, Joan was, there was a bounty on her head. She was up against the death penalty. She was a poor Black woman from North Carolina in 1974. All the forces were aligned against her.

But even in those moments, that we can fight for justice  and that we can come together, even if it’s not just our community, our own community, but that we are fighting for justice because we know what’s right. We know that the fight is righteous, and I think that we’ve seen that throughout history, and we’ve seen how one case, one situation, can ignite a movement, and I think that this is a case, you know, where it ignited a movement and brought together these disparate…and in some ways, these factions that were fighting against each other.

The white feminists and the Black Power folks and the Black feminists were not always in alignment. There was a lot of tension around these different strategies, around priorities, et cetera, but they all came together for justice for Joan. So, I think it gives a model, because we also, too, today, have different factions and in-fighting amongst these movements, but there comes a time, there comes a moment, there comes a time in history, in current events, where the only way to win against these forces that are aligned against justice is to come together.

Carmen Rios: There were a ton of moments for me when I was watching. Just the incredible insight that the folks you interview share about this moment in history, this case, these issues, and then also getting to hear, through Danielle Brooks, the voice of Joan, there were a lot of really poignant and powerful quotes and stories that come to life in this film that I was just jotting so many things down in my notebook, being like, oh my god, that’s so powerful. That’s so moving. That’s so resonant, even today. I’m curious, what were some of the most memorable or surprising things that you came across in telling this story? Is there a particular quote or moment or tidbit that has stuck with you after you waded through the news clips, the interviews, the court transcripts, and archival footage? What’s still resonating for you?

Yoruba Richen: One thing is in the court testimony. You mentioned Danielle Brooks, who we have reading the voice of Joan in the court section, in the trial section, and I think it really epitomizes what, at the time…and maybe, to some extent, today, men thought of rape, and he says…or thought how much of a non-issue it was. How it wasn’t such a big deal, and the prosecutor says to Joan, he didn’t hit you.

All he asked was just to have sex with you, and how that just completely dismisses power dynamics. Being propositioned by your jailor is something that’s just not a big deal, much less the threat of violence around it. That’s a line that really strikes me as epitomizing the callousness of white society embodied in that prosecutor. Also, too, the news headlines calling her murderess, or one of the newscasters says they’re trying to make her a jailhouse whore—I mean, just really language that is so dehumanizing.

The other thing, too, is the multiracial coalition that came together, again, in 1974, and how powerful that was, and a jury that was multiracial that came together and came to the decision that they did. At so many different points, it was so shocking, because it’s not that long ago, to see how she was treated, and yet how these groups and movements came together to support her.

Carmen Rios: I’m also thinking about the legacy of Joan Little, of this story, and I know, in your artist statement, you wrote about wanting to center Joan Little’s voice in this documentary, and so, in your own words, how would you define her legacy? How do you see the reverberations of her story and her bravery living on now?

Yoruba Richen: I think it’s, as I said, the speaking-out part. Sometimes it’s just the speaking out that encourages and inspires so many people to speak out against injustice, and I think she laid the groundwork for that, and the courage to fight and even in the face…when it seems like all the odds are against you, and that is what I think the legacy is, besides the different movements coming together. In terms of Joan’s legacy, that you fight, because you are going to tell your story, and you know that you are on the right side of history.

Carmen Rios: We’ve maybe circled this, but I’d love to hear, too, what do you hope is the impact of the documentary? How do you hope this history can continue to shape the future, once this documentary is out there in the world for people to see and this story is able to reverberate through another generation?

Yoruba Richen: We have big plans for an impact campaign, so bringing the film to local communities, and I think it’s important, how can films like this and other social-issue films, how can people use it to help what’s going on with them today. We want to figure out where we want to bring the film, what is happening there, maybe on a legislative issue or other kinds of dialogue that needs to be taking place, and that it can bring together different movements to strategize and to push for policy and change that is needed in their own community.

Carmen Rios: This is a question I’ve been asking folks just on the podcast, and it’s such a perfect fit here, too, because we’re looking back on 50-ish years ago and really tracing how that history still lives on and how that fight still lives on. In the next 50 years, what do you hope is different about this story that is being told right now about women like Joan Little, women who are incarcerated, and women who bear the brunt of a lopsided justice system?

Yoruba Richen: Well, I certainly hope that, in 50 years, the scourge of rape, sexual abuse in prisons has been eliminated or vastly reduced. I hope that a justice system that we’re seeing, very lopsided right now, is course corrected and that people who need legal help can get the help that they need, regardless of their financial situation. I think those would be the two things I’d love to see in 50 years that are different than, what happened to Joan.

Carmen Rios: I love that. Thank you so much for taking the time and for being here—

Yoruba Richen: Thank you, too.

Carmen Rios: And for making this film. It’s really incredible and moving, and yeah, I’m excited for so many more people to get to see this story about this important history.

Yoruba Richen: Awesome. Thank you so much.

[Transition Music]

Carmen Rios: Thank you so much for tuning in to this special bonus episode of LOOKING BACK, MOVING FORWARD: a podcast celebrating more than 50 years of Ms. and what’s yet to come as we carve out the second half of this feminist century.

If you liked what you heard today, be sure to check out the full show archive to dive into all five of our full-length episodes. You can find more from every installment, including my full interviews with our incredible guests and episode notes, at ms magazine dot com and ms magazine dot com slash podcast—and you can read my piece on Free Joan Little in the Winter 2025 issue of Ms. 

And be sure to stay in touch! You can follow Ms. on Facebook at msmagazine, at ms underscore magazine on Instagram and Threads and via msmagazine dot com on BlueSky, and you can find me at carmen fucking rios dot com and on social media everywhere at carmen rios, with three s’s—that’s c a r m e n r i o s s s. 

Looking Back, Moving Forward is produced by Ms. Studios. Our executive producers are Michele Goodwin and Kathy Spillar. Our Supervising Producer, Writer, and Host is yours truly, Carmen Rios. Our episode producers are Roxy Szal and Oliver Haug. This episode was edited by Emersen Panigrahi. Art and design for this show are by Brandi Phipps.

Ms. is a non-profit, reader-funded magazine. Head to msmagazine dot com and hit JOIN to become a member or sustaining member today. You’ll get every issue of the magazine in print and in the Ms. app, access special member-only newsletters, discounted and early access to our community events, and special supporter gifts! 

You can continue exploring the history of Ms. by ordering your copy of the collection 50 Years of Ms: The Best of the Pathfinding Magazine That Ignited a Revolution at bookstores and online at ms magazine dot com slash book. And now, for the first time, you can explore the entire digital collection of Ms. magazines, 1972-present, at your public or university library through ProQuest! Ask your librarian to add the new Ms. Magazine Archive to their collections if you can’t find it.

Special thanks to the team behind Free Joan Little, including Bonnie Bertram from Retro Report, for making today’s episode possible. You can learn more about Retro Report and the documentary at retro report dot org.

Our theme song is stock media provided by ProClips via Pond5.

Thanks for listening, readers.

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