#FourDiedTrying is an epic documentary film franchise examining the world-changing murders of JFK, Malcolm X, MLK & RFK. Watch us on Amazon & other platforms
Joined September 2022
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UPDATE: We are hopeful that our legal issues will soon be resolved, so we can release the second film in the @FourDiedTrying franchise. In the meantime, we want to tell you about two other film projects we've had up our sleeve:
Our critically acclaimed new 9/11 documentary "The Responders: Breaking the Silence," which presents the previously unseen interviews of six first responders who were at Ground Zero in 2001, and
"The American Ruling Class," our award-winning 2005 documentary-musical starring our late, great friend Lewis Lapham (of @Harpers and @laphamsquart fame), which is now streaming on the @criterionchannl and many other platforms.
The golden thread that runs through all of our work—our prime creative motivation—is shining a spotlight on how America's power elite gain and protect their dominance, no matter the human cost.
Visit our websites for more info:
https://www.americanrulingclass (dot) com
therespondersfilm.com
How Wall Street won: A quick 40-year history of American capitalism
This remarkable clip from Lewis Lapham's 2005 documentary The American Ruling Class traces the transformation of American capitalism from the inflationary turmoil of the 1970s to the Wall Street bull market that began in August 1982. It's a remarkably concise history of how America's elites reclaimed control — and launched a "very successful class war from above."
Thatcher and Reagan. Union-busting. The dismantling of the welfare state. Shareholders demanding ever-higher profits. Corporate profitability soaring. And then..."the madness and irrationality took over." ENRON was waiting at the other end.
Made in 2005. Still hugely relevant in 2026. Watch THE AMERICAN RULING CLASS tonight on the Criterion Channel: criterionchannel.com/films/1…
@laphamsquart @criterionchannl
WHO GETS TO JOIN THE RULING CLASS — AND WHO DECIDES? In this remarkable exchange from The American Ruling Class (2005), a young Ivy League grad asked renowned newsman Walter Cronkite how to gain entry into America’s ruling class.
Cronkite's answer was brief, but its implications are enormous, then and now. “The ruling class will invite you in," he said.
Boomers remember Cronkite as comforting Uncle Walter, "The Most Trusted Man in America." But younger generations should get to know him and listen to his words, too, because the question of who really runs America has never been more relevant.
🎬 The American Ruling Class is now streaming on The Criterion Channel. It features Lewis Lapham and Walter Cronkite, who were both also interviewed for Four Died Trying.
Watch it now: criterionchannel.com/films/1…
@laphamsquart @criterionchannl
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#OTD in 1967, my father returned to a Birmingham jail for defying an unjust court order against peaceful protest. He warned that silencing dissent could do more harm to America than dogs and fire hoses ever did. I believe the freedom to protest is still worth defending.
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John Kirby shares a father's devastating discovery — through a forensic investigation of his own son's death, he found evidence his son "was killed before the first plane hit" on 9/11. @LanceMigliaccio @TheBigMigShow
Watch the full episode here: youtu.be/ixgXdzGvqMc
Thanks again for a great conversation. We just recorded the first episode of our own podcast. It features a high-ranking first responder telling his true story about 9/11 for the first time. Stay tuned! —John Kirby, director, @respondersfilm
Sam Bushman talks with John Kirby and Chris Gioia about The Responders, first responder testimony, Building 7, and unanswered 9-11 questions. @TheBigMigShow @LanceMigliaccio
youtu.be/ixgXdzGvqMc
When Four Died Trying returns, you'll hear @RogerJStoneJr tell us about LBJ's involvement in the assassination of JFK
1963 the year LBJ orchestrated the murder of John F. Kennedy m.youtube.com/watch?v=7TX4oF…
How Lewis Lapham Helped Launched the Music Career of Rap Star Azealia Banks 🧐
Read the newsletter: mailchi.mp/thepressandthepub…
@AzealiaNews @laphamsquart
In the midst of the Cold War, the idea that Russians and Americans could be allies was something JFK had been working toward himself—and one of the reasons he was assassinated. (Little-known fact: As a senator, JFK once rode in a taxi driven by a pre-Spock Leonard Nimoy 🖖)
RIP and thank you, Walter Koenig 💔
Walter Koenig, who played Chekov in the original “Star Trek” series and seven “Star Trek” feature films, has died at 90.
variety.com/2026/film/news/w…
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The first photo of Malcolm X is a police mugshot taken after his 1946 arrest, when he was still known as Malcolm Little.
At the time, he was 20 years old and involved in burglary. He was sentenced to prison, where he would spend nearly seven years. Like many young Black men in mid-20th-century America, his early life had been shaped by poverty, racism, and limited access to education. By his own account, he had lost interest in school years earlier after being told a legal career was unrealistic for a Black student.
Prison became the turning point in his life.
While incarcerated, Malcolm began educating himself seriously for the first time. He read extensively — history, religion, philosophy, politics, and language. He later wrote that he copied the dictionary page by page to improve his reading and writing skills, and he spent long nights studying in his cell.
By the time he was released in 1952, he had transformed himself into a disciplined and highly informed speaker. Within a decade, Malcolm X became one of the most influential Black political figures in the United States, known for his speeches on racial justice, self-determination, and global Black identity.
The contrast between the mugshot and the later image is often used to illustrate how education — even outside formal schooling — can reshape a person’s direction and influence.
Malcolm X’s prison years remain one of the most widely cited examples of self-education changing the course of a life.
If you love our content and would like to support the page, you can buy us a coffee here: buymeacoffee.com/africanarch… (I also post blogs there and have a book club)—
Our friends at @laphamsquart just resurfaced a 2021 episode of The World in Time podcast, in which Lewis Lapham and historian Eric Berkowitz discussed censorship and free speech.
It brought us back to a conversation from our 2005 documentary The American Ruling Class:
“You can’t have a democracy without an informed citizenry,” Lewis says. New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. agrees and points to the press’s constitutional protection.
What does a free press owe a democracy?
Listen to the podcast: laphamsquarterly.substack.co…
Our friend Lewis Lapham was fond of saying that history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. Here's proof: Sudan is in the news now, and it was in the news in 2005. In our classic documentary The American Ruling Class—now streaming on the @criterionchannl—then-Secretary of State James Baker suggested that providing humanitarian aid isn't in the national interest. Should it be?
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Right now, Sudan is facing the largest child displacement crisis in the world, with over 6.5 million children forced from their homes as refugees or within their own country.
As champions of nonviolence and justice, we must lend our voices to those who are being silenced and displaced by conflict. We cannot turn a blind eye to the suffering of innocent lives.
#KeepEyesOnSudan #TheKingCenter #MLK #Nonviolence365 #GlobalJustice
Lee Davis is a co-producer of Four Died Trying: The Prologue. He helped us tell the story of these four heroic men; now he needs your help telling his own. Please vote for him using the link below to help him become a podcast host and appear on On Air with Ryan Seacrest. Voting ends tomorrow, so don't dawdle! Please support our friend
tophost.org/2026/lee-7
Do corporations rule America?
To answer that question, Lewis Lapham took a new Yale grad to meet a well-connected hedge fund manager, who thought it would be fun to see who owned GE—then one of America's top companies. The answer? Banks and retirement funds—not a single human being's name in sight.
Watch The American Ruling Class, streaming now on most popular platforms 🎥
americanrulingclass.com
Four Died Trying — Feature Documentary Series retweeted
JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis: Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right, not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom.
Four Died Trying — Feature Documentary Series retweeted
Grief is part of my family’s story. So is forgiveness.
After my grandmother, Alberta Williams King, was killed, my grandfather, Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr., gathered our family and told us, “Be thankful for what you have left.” He refused to hate, and he later visited the man who killed her and said, “Son, I forgive you.”
His words and his example planted seeds in me that continue to grow. Forgiveness does not excuse the harm or erase the need for justice. It keeps hatred from becoming the legacy we pass on.
#Forgiveness #MLK #AlbertaWilliamsKing #MartinLutherKingSr
