This film ought to be shown in history class.
I was fortunately enough to witness this film at an age where critical thinking will shape my understanding of fellow mankinds for eternality
Others should also have such oppertunity
There is no escaping reason, no denying purpose. To deny history is to deny the very meaning of our existence.
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kreth how old are u were u around then, if so fair enogh but to be honest i aint gona let u tell me and other people that we carnt have are opinions becouse were not old enogh. i wernt around in the 40's when the jewish comunity were being torterd but i still thinks its wrong thats an opinion is it valid i couldent give a sh*t so no offense f off :)
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This thread has been going on for almost FOUR YEARS. That is incredible!
The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. Samuel Beckett
In my hitory class we are studying black civil rights in the USA, and apprently we get to watch this movie, I havn't seen it, but it sounds kick ass.
shareI teach history to African American youth--I believe they would either be deeply hurt and offended at this movie (as would my instructional assistant).
Sadly, in this movie "evil triumphs" because the sheriff goes of scott free--and the sentences given to the co-defendants are paltry compared to the crimes.
In another sense, it is antithetical to To Kill a Mockingbird--with the judge handing four white men suspended sentences when the pled guilty--as opposed to a wrongly accused black man (Tom Robinson).
It's the white kids who need to see Mississippi Burning. Many white kids don't know this sordid part of white history. The Klan is "white" history because blacks had no culpability in its crimes and were simply its victims out of direct violence or out of fear.
Sure, this movie offended some blacks because it didn't glamorize blacks people of racist Mississippi. I saw no problem with that; people struggling for survival because of oppression can't fit Hollywood standards of beauty. If anything, the glamorization of southern blacks would be a huge infusion of unreality and would trivialize the historical reality.
The sheriff? He committed suicide a few months later. Having betrayed law enforcement through his perversion of justice, he had to be so full of guilt that he couldn't tolerate his own existence (unless there's some pancreatic cancer that we never heard about). Police have responsibility for some modicum of security of prisoners from mob violence.
I remember seeing some punk make the counterargument that "white power is all right" -- to which I replied that his idea of "white power" implies that white people can get away with behavior that soils themselves as much as it debases black people. I look at my age (52 in 2008), and I was as young as one could be (8 in 1964) and despite having no connections even of culture or ethnicity to either perpetrators or victims, I could register only disgust at the three vile murders. Many people have no memory of the killings... they need to know.
I called the Klan "Kowards, Kooks, and Killers" for what they were and what they did, ensuring that much of the South would not be democratic until the mid-1960s. There will always be those who believe that by dividing humanity so that they can be oppressors and exploiters they elevate themselves.
My only problem with your statement here is your claim that the sheriff committed suicide. Neshoba County Sheriff Lawrence Rainey died of throat cancer about seven years ago, thirty-five years after the killings.
My teacher showed us the film in an English lesson. We were doing the book "Roll of thunder, hear my cry"
shareUnfortunately the movie, though powerful, is bad history. It really should not be shown as "truth."
That doesn't mean it is bad for teaching - you can teach against it, point out its flaws and fakery, and still make it useful. Rather like Glory, another film that distorts truth to give an emotional punch (by over-fictionalising the black soldier's stories.)
I am teaching about this film right now. IN fact next week the students will watch this film and discuss questions given in class. (see the thread here)
Its for Sociology that we watch this, not history. We are studying prejudice and discrimination and the KKK are a topic of focus for good reason. The students seem to be getting a lot out of the unit thus far. If any are online I would like to hear from them.
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We just watched this finally a couple of days ago everyone seemed to like it, I did for sure.
sharethat's funny. just yesterday my little sis watched it in her 7th grade history conection class.
shareI just finished watching this last week in my history class!
Ooh, see that, there. Who needs affection when I have blind hatred?
RIP Heath Ledger <3
if they're showing this in history class, i can certainly cite it as one of the reasons for the decline in u.s. education. the teachers showing this must be uneducated idiots. it has little basis in fact, it makes good drama but very few incidents in this movie are true. three civil rights workers were murdered by the kkk and it was solved by the fbi that's about it. this case was solved by a paid informant, not a deputy's wife who while being seduced by gene hackman has a crisis of conscience and gives up the whole lot. how laughable, the case was solved because the federal government threw some money around. if they're going to study this in school perhaps a book would make a better reference point.
shareHollywood had to spruce it up so a lot of the dramatics, even the romantic liaison, was understandable. However, looking past that, the bottom line of the movie is important for children to understand: How people of power can still think themselves above the law and exercise crime, terror, and intimidation to cover up a profound wrong-doing. The obstacles put in front of those trying to solve the crime teach about aggravation as well as persistance. That's a good lesson in any format, even a movie script.
Coincidentally, I had to write a term paper about this movie in a college course this semester. It was my favorite part of the course syllabus. Nice deviation from the typical, absract subject matter of many college term papers.
In High School, my history class watched this. My teacher was pretty verbal about the historical inaccuracies, I think it was a nice excuse not to do work for a couple days.
shareNo fictionalized cinematic account of historical events can ever be 100% accurate. Such is a consequence of fictionalization. The story has to be exciting or at least entertaining. Time will be telescoped, characters will be made into composites, and geographic details might be distorted for cinematic effects.
The FBI found an informant; somebody even tangentially in a conspiracy to commit murder is likely to get some pangs of conscience. "A n---er and a couple of New York Jews"? Maybe one comes to recognize that such people are human. Finding the bodies took real work, and that came because military personnel were called in to dig up an earthwork in which the bodies were buried.
The simple truth is that J. Edgar Hoover was a racist, and he got pulled into the case contrary to his desires. But yes, those were three disgusting murders in a corrupt world in which white people could seemingly get away with anything in defense of white supremacy.
this is a large forum didn't read it all but in our history class we saw this
shareI didn't read this whole forum either, but we were supposed to watch this in one of my classes.
The teacher has been showing this movie as long as he's been teaching, and all of a sudden, he can't because it's rated R. Our school is pathetic.
I have to write a short report on this film as a part of our topic about movements of the people. I thought it was a great choice - very moving and based on important true events.
~Formerly known as "eowynmaiar".
To all the claims that the FBI didn't care- they did very much. And the Department of Justice definately cared, especially John Doar. That man did more for the civil rights movement than any other white man. John Martin, one of the lawyers in the case, is a family friend and my history fair topic. yes, the main reason the FBI cared was becuase of Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. But the Department of Justice cared about every single one of those boys, including James Chaney.
only 7 out of 18 men were convicted. But it was the first time that Klansmen were convicted in a trial for murder of a black man. The only way Edgar Ray Killen got out of being convicted was becuase the jury refused to convicted a white baptist preacher of murder.
Not every white person in America were racist against blacks. Most were for desegregation. Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia were by far the most racist states in the U.S. But they were all taught to be racist.
According to James Meredith, the first black man in Ole Miss, "80% of african-americans thought they were inferior to whites". Many blacks were against desegreation. The fightr was never white vs. black. It was very mixed.
and there aren't two sides to racism. There is racism against every single race. The chinese were segregated against canadians just like blacks were to whites. The Native Americans obviously had racism against them. How many Native Americnas have you seen lately?
Though there are things wrong with the movie(John Martin, who is portrayed in this movie, says there were no redneck FBI agents back in the day)it would still be a great movie to show when learning about civil rights.
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I live in Australia. I am 16 and in year 11. My English class had to watch this movie. We had to do an assignment about it as well. I am glad we did watch this movie. I think it was really sad, but a great movie. We had a lot of great class discussions about it as well. I would definitely watch this movie again.
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