History Class

I have seen a time to kill in my law education class last year

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I am aware that the drama of the true story had been twisted. But the main issue the film protraits, racism, has not being tainted. I don't care what the intention of FBI was(not that I believe your claim just because you stated it), all I really want is every teens out there have a taste of who we once were, and to think of the road that lies ahead of us. The core of the film revolves around racism, not the FBI. That's what needs to be exposed.

Yes, America is still a racist society.

I don't quite get what you are trying to say when you accused my taste for the film. If you think I picked the film for history class because it opens my mind(the fact that I had no idea just how racist the Southern State once was), then I will agree with you. This is the reason why I suggest everybody in high school should see it, to be less ignorant and naive about our society.

If you think the film doesn't worth to be shown just because it enhanced federal government's image, then you had totally missed the point of the film

Revisionist? Hardly. Even with what I know about J. Edgar Hoover, who was drawn kicking and screaming into this case, the role of the FBI in solving this case is truth. Sure, some details are modified, but on the whole it is correct. The KKK murdered three civil-rights workers for exercising their constitutional rights in a part of the country in which some people still acted as if violence were an appropriate way of dealing with the opposition. Real revisionism would be to say that blacks had every cause to be happy with being treated as subjects in Mississippi.

J. Edgar may have had as much bigotry toward blacks as a typical KKK fascist, but he knew which way te wind was blowing. Political violence is contrary to everything noble in American political life, and the KKK is political violence with a thin veneer of religious expression and patriotism. Rank-and-file FBI agents may have treated this case with little relish -- but they had their purpose, and they exercised their investigative skills as honorably and effectively as possible. That meant that the KKK fascists were going to be discovered. caught. and exposed.

We see what the KKK was -- Kowards, Kooks, and Killers. We see one Kluxer, after being dropped off in the "dark side of town" to walk home, acting as if he had encountered ghosts. Those fellows were scared of the likely consequences of the erosion of white power -- that their privileges would disappear, and that their loved ones might begin to see through the superstition.

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"please. This film is revisionist history at its best and to show it in a history class would be ludicrous."

Actually, this film was shown in my history class, and was enjoyed by everyone. Even if the FBI "did not give a damn about those missing civil rights workers," that does not prove the film is an "egregious lie." It is sad that a story prommoting racial unification provokes your label of "ignorant" to those who find it feasable.

I know this comment was made in 2003 when you couldn't have known what the outcome would be in 2005, but now you know that it's not so ludicrous to show ths film in history classes. Although it was said to depict "fictional events" now we all know the truth.

PHILADELPHIA, Miss. - An 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman, Edgar Ray Killen was convicted of manslaughter Tuesday in the slayings of three civil rights workers that shocked the nation exactly 41 years ago and helped spur passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

I agree that America was racistin 1964 and that it is to some extent today. Being a multi-racial woman myself i know this. However i just wanted to let you know you should probably re-think this movie now that we know the truth.

~*~Jess~*~
"If i have to look at one more *beep* housewife smoking a newport I think I'll puke"

They showed it in our alevel history class when we were studying the black civil rights movement. It was actually very helpful.

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If one expects a film to be 100% accurate in its portrayal of a complex historical event, then that is fantasy world. Mississippi Burning is a work of art as well as telling a very important story about a terrible time in American history. Regardless of the details, the point was that for whatever reason, the Federal govenrment went to war against racism in the South on that issue and later in Alabama and this dramatically changed the course of history. Not that it eradicated racism, get real. Have AIDS films eradicated AIDS? Will racism ever be eradicated. NO! But the emotional power of this and other films can do as much as any single thing to change the hearts and minds of people willing to change. It's very tiresome to read these childish rants from a mentality that is so limited it doesn't even realize that the same problem it is attacking is being enacted by its own myoptic view of the world. Mississippi Burning is a masterpiece of cinema that tells a story well-worth telling, extremely well.

I teach a History in Film class and definitely show this film. Students are certainly capable of understanding the propoganda in film as well as the truth in film. Being able to critically analyze which is which is part of what we are teaching. Don't sell our kids short. They are much more astute than they are given credit for.

While I agree with the points you make about the fact that the FBI didn't give a tinkers' damn about the missing civil rights workers in the film and that a perfunctory investigation was begun to make it look like someone did give a damn, I think you miss the point of Chaosdynasty's post.

Even though there have only been a few generations between the time the story occurred and the present day, and even though there is still discrimination and prejudice in our country today, people need to see films like this to remind themselves of what that time in our history was like. So it's not a completely accurate history, you say? The teacher showing the film to the class could make a disclaimer that states that, although some facts and history in this film are incorrect, the film is an excellent example of what these times were like and what people felt, said, and did during this great upheaval in our nation. Then you give the class an assignment to delve into the REAL history behind the film so as to indelibly mark it on their brains.

Having just re-watched Ghosts of Mississippi last night, I realized once again that old saying that goes, roughly, "those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them." At one point in the film it was mentioned that no one even remembers who Medger Evers was and this was in the early 1990s. So, within just 25 years of his death, Evers and his circumstances were already forgotten to history by a great many people in our nation and, therefore, a whole new generation might not be taught or realize just what he died for. I also recently re-watched The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (I must be on a Civil Rights kick lately!) and the scene at the end where she goes up to drink from the "whites only" water fountain also reminded me that we have come quite a ways but we also forget easily the struggles the nation had to go through to get to where we are today. Many children today do not realize or remember those kind of incidents and the fact that black people were beaten, arrested, or even killed for simply drinking from a fountain not designated for them. In watching films I have shown my own children, they have witnessed things in the films that they have not seen in real life due to what progress we have made. However, when these questions came it, I used it as a tool to help them understand what a different world it was then, how far we HAVE come, but also how far we STILL have to go.

Are we in a perfect world where no one ever commits discrimination or has a thought of prejudice in their minds? No. As Alec Baldwin's character (and his father's) said in GOM, roughly: "It doesn't matter what or how we legislate. We can't change how people think." But, as long as we continue to learn and re-learn and reflect on our history, we have the chance of leading each subsequent generation in the direction of a society that understands each other more and discriminates less.

So, even if GOM isn't completely accurate, it's still an excellent learning tool to use in a history class-as long as the teacher follows through on the real facts and reinforces those with the class.

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you said, "Ku Kluxers, neo-nazis, Skinheads, and their like are pathetic losers too cowardly to judge people on their personal merits instead of upon skin color" etc etc but shouldnt you state that you have a problem against White-Power Skinheads or Nazi-Skinheads because if you didnt know there are several different types of skinheads and the 3 most prodominant are:
Traditional Skinheads(mostly referred to as Trojan Skinheads or Trads) who purely identify with the original skinhead movement in terms of music, style, culture and working class pride.
SHARP (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice) who are very outspoken and political skinheads who are aggressively against racism and is often left wing.
White Power skins and Nazi-Skinheads are Racist and highly political, generally extreme right wing. Despite the common moniker, many Nazi skins have NO connection to the original skinhead culture in terms of style or interests. (SHARPs and traditional skinheads sometimes refer to them as Boneheads.) Im sorry for this long explanation but i dont believe you should be against all skinheads which your statement does express its just like saying your against germans coz nazi's were germans. And i understand that the public has a misconception of skinheads and that you might not be fully aware but maybe you should know before you go putting all of them in the same boat as they say. :)Thanks for listening heh i can really blabber on, sorry .

Yes, please do =)

My teacher is just cool...and careless

Be warned though, a certain portion of history is rated R