All the Black people had to go home – a story of segregation in the South

“They would blow a siren at nine o’clock, and all of the Black people had to go home.”  [quote from The Nine O’clock Whistle}.    

Racial disparity is a sad part of American history; yet there are many untold stories of triumph that emerged from it.  The Nine O’clock Whistle documentary tells one of those stories.  

Set in the 1960s in Enfield, North Carolina, a small segregated town in northeastern North Carolina, the story unfolds through the memories of participants, some of whom were only fourteen and fifteen years old when the events took place.  These brave souls stood up to mental and physical intimidation tactics and fought back, along with their adult counterparts.  It was a Black Lives Matter movement that was 58 years ahead of its time.

The Nine O’clock Whistle is the first feature length film by 93-years-old educator and activist Willa Cofield (Johnson). Her first film was a short documentary that was produced in 2004 about the Brick School, which was also located in Enfield, NC.  Both Willa’s mother, Mae Cofield, and co-producer Karen Riley’s grandmother, Olive Bond Polk, were graduates of Brick School. The Brick School was a school dedicated to teaching colored youth both manual skills and college prep academics.  

Although just completed in June 2021, The Nine O’clock Whistle has already garnered multiple awards

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Contact info:
Name:  Willa Cofield / Karen Riley
Company:  9 Whistle c/o Grassroots Media
Email: 9Whistle@gmail.com