Chilling Expose of the Damage Caused by Racial Hatred and Violence

Rating: 10/10 (10 April 2010)

In a barber shop, one of the locals in Meridian, Mississippi, declares, "Our nigras were happy till those beatnik college kids came down here stirrin' things up." This seemingly simple statement sums up much of the conflict of "Mississippi Burning": the clash between the ruling powers of white racial segregationists to maintain their status quo and leaders of the Civil Rights Movement bent on weakening and ultimately destroying Jim Crow laws in the south. Although the film at the outset comes off as rather "black and white", the white southern males portrayed as pure devils and the African-Americans as meek victims, the brutality and violence of what occurred during the Civil Rights Movements during the 1950's and 1960's is not exaggerated. The church-burnings and lynchings had been going on since the early 20th century and climaxed under Eisenhauer, Kennedy and Johnson. The happy ending was the signing of civil rights legislation by President Johnson, although many people paid a high price for this goal, some with their lives.
"Mississippi Burning" is loosely based on the investigation of three civil rights workers who disappeared while attempting to cross the Nebraska-Mississippi border in June of 1964. (Their bodies were eventually found in a hay stack, and their car was retrieved from a swamp.) Their crime: attempting to register Black and ethnic voters in the state of Mississippi. Most of the events, save for aspects of the investigation, have been largely fictionalized. However, the events as portrayed do well to paint a landscape of distrust and violence stemming from racial hatred and intolerance that was still prevalent in the deep south at that time. Federal agents, played by Willem Dafoe and Gene Hackman in tour-de-four Oscar-caliber performances, enter into what appears to be a mini-civil war. Members of the KKK and other supremacist groups run the town and surrounding area like a demilitarized zone in which white males hold all political power and keep blacks in living conditions that would give Auschwitz a run for its money. Whenever a black or ethnic minority challenges this status quo, either they are lynched or their house is burned down. And they burn down a black church for good measure. (Of course the arsonists also regarded themselves as Christians, but that's a whole other subject.) Law enforcement turns a blind eye to these heinous acts since they are in cahoots with the segregationists.
Much of the film chronicles the federal investigation which reveals that the disappearance of the young men is just a tip-of-the-iceberg of racially-motivated brutality and violence maintained by a complex infrastructure designed to keep blacks and other ethnic minorities "in their place". "Happiness" as defined by the quote at the beginning of this review basically means living in squalor and fear with no hope of improvement. Simultaneously, the black community refuses to speak to the investigators fearing anything they say will have dire consequences at the hands of either local law enforcement or the supremacist groups. The African-Americans are in a no-win situation. Swift violence is inflicted upon them if they protest, but it also occurs without provocation. The racists literally get away with murder largely because they can.
The film implies that these white supremacists burned several churches and homes during the course of about 2 weeks in the rural town of Meridian, Mississippi, probably excessive even by KKK standards. However, I think the point was to compress much of the violent and brutal behavior against African-Americans and other ethnic groups that reached a fervent pitch from about 1955 to 1965 into a single cinematic experience. "Mississippi Burning" is an attempt to demonstrate the nature of the destructiveness of the forces fighting to maintain racial inequality that had persisted since the end of the American Civil War 100 years earlier with the maintenance of Jim Crow laws.
"Mississippi Burning" is largely about how the southern white community feared the Civil Rights Movement--fear that manifested itself as crime and violence. You have to wonder what were they fearing? That a black man might find a cure for cancer, eradicate poverty, or, become President of the United States and enact a health-care bill? Fear is a very powerful force. Fear can be used to keep other people down but it can also be used to compel otherwise good people into the most heinous of acts through distorted rationalizations and fabrications. I don't believe all white southerners who fought against civil rights were pure evil. But I do think many of their minds were poisoned by fear and hatred. Maybe this film can help cure them.