Southern Schizophrenia at its Down and Dirtiest

Rating: Null/10 (29 April 2001)

An Alabamian and a civil rights worker who wrote my high school thesis on "Segregation: The Damage to Whites, Psychologically, Emotionally and Economically" ...got an A++ in Birmingham, Al in 1955. Even though my English teacher was a Sunday School teacher, that tells you nothing in the Bible Belt when we are taught to love everyone as Jesus did, and in actions, ignore black people as though they didn't exist. So, this tale of Mississippi white trash, including the higher political officials, didn't include the class of folks most responsible for the evil done to our former slaves' children: the educated white middle-class. Even Mississippi has some of those folks (e.g., William Faulkner). We see the injustice spread from the mayor to the sheriff to the judges, just as we are seeing it today at the federal level with a Supreme Court that justifies handcuffs arrest for little or no reason, and puts a thief into the president's office.
"Mississippi Burning" features Gene Hackman, doing his thing, including seducing psychologically the deputy's wife for the good of the service. And it doesn't back off from the fact that it was the residents of those towns in Mississippi that got hurt when the FBI came visiting, almost as much hurt as the 3 civil rights workers received. At Inauguration Day 2001, as a protester facing the police cordons, I got a taste of how quickly a peaceful protest can result in violence and jail-time. But once you understand that jail itself is not shameful when the jailers are criminals, being arrested doesn't seem so bad. You'll see, however, what happens when the innocent jailed are released into the night with full complicity of the law enforcement people in that small Mississippi town.
Great movie, and I wish it weren't so truthful about my part of the country. The look on those ignorant Mississippi people, and the sweet looks of the children there showed just how hatred is taught. There are great lessons to be learned, and every schoolchild should be shown this.