MovieChat Forums > Mississippi Burning (1989) Discussion > Was history really this 'black and white...

Was history really this 'black and white'?

posted 11 years ago by AxeMarc
9 replies | jump to latest

This is a topic for all of you with open minds, so if you're PC or racist, you might wanna stop readig here.

I'm only 15 minutes in to this movie (and liking it so far, but that's irrelevant), but the sheer volume of slimey simple-minded low IQ stereotype southern rednecks in a reckognized piece of quality epic such as this, makes me wonder; Was it REALLY that simple back in the 50's & 60's? Had this hate roots beyond the bar set on James Bond-villains, or was there other things to it that are too PC to bring up in this day and age?

First things first; I wasn't around in the 60's, being born in 1979. And when born, I've never even visited the continent that is North America. But, the claimed history of the discrimination against black people is well established here in Europe.

The image etched in decade after decade of blacks as innocent preys back then, being pretty much stalked and harassed by entire states in this disgusting mannor ... is this image TRUE, or twisted, history-wise?

WAS the acts of violence towards black people back in the 50's and 60's "uncalled" for. Don't get me wrong, NO act of violence is called for, unless self-defense. But had the real life Hollywood-redneck some sort of reason/excuse with a Liiittle bit more nuance, than that of which we are taught in cinemas?

[–] kimasabe90035-1 11 years ago

YES, sadly the reality was this bad. That's why so many people died.

[–] pypsqweek 11 years ago

My Mom grew up in Mississippi during this time and she says that it's accurate. "Things were exactly like that".

[–] ronin11-1 11 years ago

I can understand your feelings about Mississippi Burning. I had similar feelings when I saw Schindler's List. Could anyone be as truly evil as was portrayed in the movie? Sadly, I believe the answer is yes.

I think that racism is irrational and proves that humanity is not as advanced or evolved as we like to believe. I also don't believe that racism is limited to the Southern United States. Martin Luther King once noted that, of all the marches he participated in during the struggle for civil rights, he felt the most visceral hatred during a march in Cook County, Illinois (in the North).

As for provocation for the violence, research Emmett Till and events surrounding his murder.

I don't have exact numbers, but I think that officially there are over 5,000 still unsolved murders of African Americans during the period of the civil rights struggle. But, if you include all of the unsolved murders that occurred after the emancipation that number rises well over 100,000.

[–] darjeeling443 11 years ago

Was it this bad?

No, the film is way WAY understated. It was much, much worse.

[–] lisastmary 10 years ago

This movie is based on real events and it is fairly accurate. Living and working in the US as an Irish person these last 13 years I can say it is very accurate. With the 50th anniversary of all these events there is an openness to revisiting of these events... And a renewed racism. With the election of black president, racism hasp riven to be not only alive and well but harder and more sophisticated: in 1964 it was easier to see the bigot as s/he was spitting or screaming in your face. TOday they are much more silent but still working hard. We have still a loooong way to go.

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] CheshireCatsGrin 10 years ago

Worse. Watch Stanley Nelson's 2014 PBS documentary on this project the murdered civil rights workers to see how horrible it was. Look for Freedom Summer to see what they were up against.

To see how much worse the general climate was I recommend his documentary Freedom Riders from 2010. It won several Emmy's for American Exerience, the show that aired it. I saw it on Amazon Prime but guessing it's also on YouTube.

[–] Prophet_muhammad_578 8 years ago

This is how agenda driven Hollywood ALWAYS portrays the south. A bunch of inbred racist whites ready to lynch an innocent black at the drop of a hat. Lets see them make a movie about Chicago and the 50 black people shot by other black people EVERY damn weekend. No we can't have that, doesn't fit the narrative that all whites are evil racists.

[–] mobocracy (891) a year ago

It's like Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

Was the civil rights era South population 100% rabidly and violently racist, hating blacks down to the last molecule of melanin? No. But nearly everyone was quietly complicit and sympathetic to segregation and the angry resistance to civil rights laws being imposed on them from "outside".

I think there's an argument to be made that the pace of modernization of American life accelerated after WW II and much of the South was behind. Before the interstate highway system, a lot of places, perhaps more in the South, were isolated and living in cultural bubbles. The growth of transportation, electronic media and so on had a disruptive effect on established and traditional social strata, and the civil rights movement was just the most visible and obvious fault line.

I think if you removed the black civil rights aspect, you'd still have a pretty politically polarized southern society reacting to social changes. Perhaps involving less obvious violent conflict.