America in the 1960’s was an extremely important time for civil rights activists nationwide. The South was an especially difficult area for most activists to achieve much change and racist tendencies still remained alive in the minds of most native born white Americans. The movie Mississippi Burning attempts to convey the true story of the murder of three civil rights activists within Southern America during this time period but misses the mark on a few key ideas and important details. Mississippi Burning is historically inaccurate in its depiction of the murder case’s trial, the significance of the murders and the most important figures during the time of the case, and the FBI’s overall presence and attitude towards the case and it’s solving.
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The movie’s choice to focus on two white FBI agents as the main characters completely takes the focus away from the more important civil rights leaders and organizations during the struggle for equality in 1960’s Mississippi, as well as the victims themselves. The names of the three murdered individuals are never even mentioned, further depersonalizing the event and essentially leaving it open for interpretation as to who the men really were as people. The viewer is instead supposed to center their attention on two completely fictional white FBI agents (Hoerl.) While the film is able to effectively paint a picture of the terror experienced by many Mississippians during the “Freedom Summer” of 1964, it falls short when it comes to conveying the actual people who were working towards changing this unfortunate reality for African Americans everywhere (What Was.) The movie also does not clearly express the importance of the public and journalistic influences on the push forward for the civil rights movement after the murders took place. Outrage throughout the nation towards the murders in the form of every major American news network helped provide the movement with extra footing, an aspect that is almost entirely ignored in the film (Toplin.) Mississippi Burning blatantly ignores the efforts of white and black civil rights activists alike before, during, and after the murders, instead focusing entirely on the FBI agents overblown involvement in the case and depicting them as the true heroes. Martin Luther King Jr. even visited the town a mere month after the murders and commented on how there was a “complete reign of terror” there (Tunzelmann.) Important civil rights leaders such as King should have been the main focus of the movie as they had been in the real life
The movie’s choice to focus on two white FBI agents as the main characters completely takes the focus away from the more important civil rights leaders and organizations during the struggle for equality in 1960’s Mississippi, as well as the victims themselves. The names of the three murdered individuals are never even mentioned, further depersonalizing the event and essentially leaving it open for interpretation as to who the men really were as people. The viewer is instead supposed to center their attention on two completely fictional white FBI agents (Hoerl.) While the film is able to effectively paint a picture of the terror experienced by many Mississippians during the “Freedom Summer” of 1964, it falls short when it comes to conveying the actual people who were working towards changing this unfortunate reality for African Americans everywhere (What Was.) The movie also does not clearly express the importance of the public and journalistic influences on the push forward for the civil rights movement after the murders took place. Outrage throughout the nation towards the murders in the form of every major American news network helped provide the movement with extra footing, an aspect that is almost entirely ignored in the film (Toplin.) Mississippi Burning blatantly ignores the efforts of white and black civil rights activists alike before, during, and after the murders, instead focusing entirely on the FBI agents overblown involvement in the case and depicting them as the true heroes. Martin Luther King Jr. even visited the town a mere month after the murders and commented on how there was a “complete reign of terror” there (Tunzelmann.) Important civil rights leaders such as King should have been the main focus of the movie as they had been in the real life