During my undergraduate and Master’s studies at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg (USFSP), my mentor was Dr. Raymond O. Arsenault.  Now emeritus, he was the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History, which means he spent a lot of time studying and writing about the Civil Rights Movement.  As an undergraduate taking a course on American Slavery, he steered me away from my ambitions to study Napoleonic History and into something closer to home.  I did not know it then, but my next move would be to enroll in a Master’s Degree program in Florida Studies at USFSP, of which he was co-chair.  Honestly, I might not have gone in that direction if not for him offering me an assistantship.  It was during my time with him as a graduate student that he wrote what can be called his magnum opus, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice (2007).  All us Florida Studies students made some contribution to it, and you can find my name (along with a long list of others) in the acknowledgements for the book.  My background with him informed my own study of the Catholic Church in the United States.  All these ideas are foremost in my mind when I watch Mississippi Burning (1988).  It is a fictionalized account of a real set of murders that happened in 1964 in the titular state.  The fact that it was dramatized so caused a fair amount of controversy, but I hope my discussion of it will inspire you as my former professor did.

The reason for Mississippi Burning starts with the stated deaths of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, although there is already a departure from historical fact as their names are never mentioned in the film. Almost all that is known about them is that one is African American (Chaney), one is Jewish (Schwerner), and all worked in the Civil Rights Movement.  Later, we are told in a roundabout way that they had come to the Hospitality State to register African Americans to vote.  This is enough for whites and their organization of thugs known as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) to catch up with the three, kill them, and dump their bodies and car somewhere in the nearby swamps.  This, combined with other acts of racial violence displayed to this point, brings two representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI): Agents Rupert Anderson (Gene Hackman) and his partner and immediate superior Alan Ward (Willem Dafoe).  Agent Ward is the younger of the two, Ivy League educated and Northern born.  Agent Anderson is a former Mississippi sheriff, and while no less dedicated to battling racism to find the perpetrators, understands better how things are done in the South.  As such, they have two different approaches to how to handle the wall of silence they encounter in the community, from African Americans and whites.  Because Agent Ward is the boss, his style initially wins out.  His first misstep is walking into the diner and sitting in the African American section to speak with one of the non-whites.  Doing so not only makes the interviewee a target of Klan violence, but men in white hoods also shoot up the two agents’ motel room.  Once more against Agent Anderson’s advice, Agent Ward calls in dozens more FBI men to help with the investigation.  Though this does result in them getting a tip as to the location of the vehicle belonging to the slain, Agent Anderson concentrates on talking to the locals.  Most them are wary, if not hostile, towards him, but he does encounter one friendly person in hairstylist Mrs. Pell (Frances McDormand).  Her husband is Deputy Sheriff Clinton (Brad Dourif), who, along with Sheriff Ray Stuckey (Gailard Sartain), allow the Klan to terrorize the African American community.  Hence, as Agent Ward calls in sailors with the United States Navy (USN) to search every inch of the swamp, the Klan, with law enforcement’s help, perpetrates violence against any African American who so much as looks at the FBI.  Yet, in Agent Anderson’s interactions with Mrs. Pell, he can tell her story about her husband’s whereabouts on the night of the opening incident is a lie.  Deputy Pell had not been with the missus, but was a part of the gang that attacked the three.  As Agent Anderson and Mrs. Pell get closer to one another, she admits to knowing about the murders and where the bodies are buried.  Deputy Pell and his Klan accomplices figure out it is his wife who talked.  With the others looking mercilessly on, Mrs. Pell is beaten by her husband to the point of needing hospitalization.  Agent Anderson is angered by this turn of events.  Instead of getting personal revenge, Agent Ward convinces his partner that they are now going to do things Agent Anderson’s way.  Flying in an African American interrogator (Badja Djola), the FBI kidnaps town mayor Tilman (R. Lee Ermey) to question him.  “Interrogator” is being generous as Mayor Tilman is borderline tortured into giving up the names of all involved.  From there, the FBI tricks the conspirators into meeting with one another.  Having bugged the pre-arranged meeting place, their conversation corroborates their culpability.  With this information, it is a fairly easy matter of getting the guilty ones to turn on one another, they are individually arrested.  Agent Anderson has one last visit with Mrs. Pell before the final scene with area residents gathering to heal from the recent trauma.

Admittedly, the synopsis of Mississippi Burning I have gathered for you is a little shorter than most.  That is because there are a lot of scenes of racial violence that do not come off as repetitive, but would sound that way if I described them all to you.  In this vein, after rescuing an African American before a lynching in completed, Agent Ward asks Agent Anderson why these people behave in this manner?  God made all of us to have empathy in mind, and when we see incidents in the world today like racial violence in our communities, or the invasion of Ukraine, they hopefully stir you to compassion.  The sad thing is that people use the Bible to justify the opposite of justice.  In the film, Mrs. Pell mentions that growing up, white Mississippians were taught that Genesis 9:27 justified segregation as practiced in the South.  That Scripture says, “May God expand Japheth, and may he dwell among the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his slave.”  These words are uttered by Noah, who has awakened from a drunken stupor in the aftermath of the Flood.  Like some parts of the Old Testament, it is not clear to non-theologians why Cannan was cursed.  In any case, it is about as flimsy a justification for a racial hierarchy of which one can conceive.  Indeed, it strikes one as an injustice that Noah would react as he did, saying that his son Canaan was cursed.  The movie has a response for such behavior, giving a version of Edmund Burke’s famous quote, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”  The film takes it one step further, imputing guilt on all of us who either stand idly by, or attempt to justify the system that perpetuates the violence.  The point here is that those who think that this is just the way things are not only make the situation worse, but are part of the problem.  God gives us the ability to defend the weak and to attempt to change the world for the better.  It does not have to be with a badge and a gun as in today’s picture.  Prayer is the most powerful tool of all.  With that, hopefully, comes empathy for the plight of others.

In Mississippi Burning, Agents Anderson and Ward exercise their empathy for the African American community in different ways.  As a Catholic who has studied how people of my Faith have been treated in this country, I identify to a certain degree with these events.  Clayton Townley (Stephen Tobolowsky), leader of the local Klan, underscores this when he categorizes Catholics and Jews to be just as bad as African Americans.  I could give you some historical examples to prove this, but I have gone on long enough.  You can watch the movie for the rest.