In-class write

Reed Thurman

1. People who watch the film Mississippi Burning will learn a lot of things that surrounded the civil rights movement in the south. The film depicts the hatred that white southerners had towards african americans in a very accurate way. The film shows how white people could do almost anything to a black man at that time and get away with it. In the film a court trial is shown and the man being tried is a white man who burnt down the home of a black man. The judge found him guilty but said that he did not have to serve any jail time for it. This scene in the film shows the reality of the deep south in that time in a very clear and easy to follow way.

People who watch this film will learn many important lessons from it. They will learn how segregation really was and how african americans were treated. In the movie there is a scene where a white FBI officer sits down in the colored section of a restaurant and tries to talk to an african american man about to three missing civil rights workers. The african american man told him that he had nothing to say then he walked away. A few scenes late, the african american man was taken by Klan members and was beaten and thrown out of a moving car. These scenes teach the viewer how in that time an african american even saying a few words to someone could get them beaten and killed. All of these lesions teach the viewer about the true horrors of segregation and shows how awful it is to ensure that we never go back to it.

The movie does a very good job of teaching the viewer about the awful things that people did during that time. The movie shows how some people, the FBI agents, are fighting for the truth and for equality. The movie also does a very good job of teaching the viewer the struggle that authorities would go through trying to convict people who had committed a crime against an african american. The FBI agents in the movie knew that they could not try the Klan member on murder charges because the case would go to a local courtroom and the men would not be convicted. The FBI agents had to charge the men on civil rights infringement so that they would be tried federally and would be convicted. In real life the FBI agents went through this same struggle and the movie did a very excellent job at showing this.

2. One major historical fact that was left out was the motive for the Klan members to murder the civil rights workers. In the film this is simply left out and leaves the viewer a little confused. In real life, the civil rights workers planned to set up places for african americans to register  to vote. This one of the main motives for the Klan members but in the movie this is left out completely. By leaving this information out it leaves the viewer wanting more information on why the crime happened.

The film also glosses over a major detail of the case that gave the case and film its name. The car that the civil rights workers drove was completely burnt up and the metal frame was the only thing left. The movie goes over this in a single sentence and does not expand on it. The FBI’s case name was “MIBURN”, named after the burnt up car that the civil rights workers drove. The movie was then named Mississippi Burning after this case name, but the movie fails to go into any depth surrounding this and the only information given about this in the movie was a single phrase of a sentence saying that the car was badly burnt up. By leaving this information out, the movie fails to teach the viewer why the case was called Mississippi Burning and the full importance of the car.

3. If the film was stretched out another twenty minutes scenes from the court cases should be added. At the end of the film it plays a slide show that tells the viewer what happened to all of the men involved in the murders. It shows what amount of prison time the men got and who got off with no charges. The ending was very abrupt and was immediately following the climax. If scenes about the court trials and cases were added in, they would add a better sense of completion. Over the movie the viewer can start to hate the antagonist, if scenes had been added showing the trials and the outcomes of the trials the movie would have had a much more fulfilling and complete ending for the viewer.