Elgin James

Elgin James is an American filmmaker, musician and a former member of Friends Stand United (FSU), a Boston, Massachusetts area antifascist group in the early 1990s which has been classified by several law enforcement agencies as a gang.

[1] With a crop of marijuana in the backyard and alcohol and drug abuse in the house, James formed strong anti-drinking and anti-drug beliefs, which later led him to be a pivotal figure in the 1990s militant straight edge movement within the punk subculture.

There he rejected the pacifist beliefs of his parents (who had marched with Martin Luther King Jr. and became Freedom Riders), and began studying the writings of Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, and Huey P. Newton, fusing them with aggressive punk ideals.

They established the Foundation Fund, which set up scholarships at Berklee College of Music and Suffolk University Law School in the names of FSU members who had died.

The fund also holds yearly benefit concerts to raise money for charities that reflect "hardcore punk culture" (teen homelessness, anti-handgun violence, suicide prevention and local orphanages).

[9] James began his music career playing in straight edge hardcore bands such as Wrecking Crew, 454 Big Block and Righteous Jams.

In December 2008, James was announced as a fellow for the Sundance Screenwriters lab,[10] and around 2009 he began working on Little Birds, loosely basing the film on his own life experiences.

But James was worried the film would ultimately "glamorize the violent lifestyle" he'd recently left behind, so he wrote Little Birds instead, substituting two fifteen-year-old girls for himself and his best friend.

[12] He chose to focus on the characters of "Lily" and "Alison" after seeing a teenage girl riding on the back of a bike in the Salton Sea, with James saying "You could just tell that she was on fire and she was never going to get out of there", referencing how he felt about being trapped in his own small town as a kid.

[13] James finished Little Birds shortly before its screening in 2011 at the Sundance Film Festival before having to attend a trial for his actions while part of Friends Stand United.

Speculation has been raised that lead singer Tony Lovato's previous ties to white power groups[22][23] were the reason why the band was targeted,[20] given FSU's anti-racist stance.