Too often, history has shown that somebody seeking to disrupt the status quo is reacted against in a violent manner.  Jesus experienced this, and He suffered His Passion as a result.  Sadly, throughout the centuries, those blazing a path for justice have been killed for their efforts.  Because they do so, they allow for others to come after them and make their sacrifice worthy by enjoying the resulting benefits.  As we still see today, such acts come with a responsibility to remain vigilant lest those same forces try to return society to some version of the past that they think best represents their views.  It takes prayer to do so because such struggles are only possible with God’s assistance.  I could choose any number of cinematic examples to illustrate the points I have already made, but today we are discussing Ghosts of Mississippi (1996).  There is a lot to say about this film, but, in light of this introduction, I will ask you to consider a question it poses at the end: is it ever too late to do the right thing?

The person who is not doing the right thing at the beginning of Ghosts of Mississippi is Byron De La Beckwith (James Woods).  On the night June 12^th, 1963, the same day that president John F. Kennedy (archival) delivers a landmark civil rights speech, Byron stalks and murders the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) Mississippi field secretary Medgar Evers (James Pickens Jr.) outside his Jackson home.  Upon hearing the shot that kills Medgar, his wife, Myrlie Evers (Whoopi Goldberg), runs outside only for him to die in her arms.  Though Byron’s gun is recovered at the scene of the crime, two subsequent trials result in hung juries and he is allowed to go free.  There the matter sits until 1989, when allegations arise of the state’s history of jury tampering, including in the Evers case.  This opens the way for Myrlie to come to the Hinds County district attorney’s (DA) office in order to request that a new indictment be brought against Byron.  She meets the main DA, Ed Peters (Craig T. Nelson), and one of the Assistant DA’s, Bobby DeLaughter (Alec Baldwin).  They are both skeptical of the merits of going forward, saying, among other things, that doing so would be a violation of Byron’s sixth amendment rights to a speedy trial under the United States Constitution.  However, something about Myrlie, a mother of three, and the thought of living through her husband’s assassination, touches Bobby.  This is remarkable considering he had married Dixie DeLaughter (Virginia Madsen), the daughter of the racist judge who had presided over Medgar’s first trial.  Indeed, the more Bobby becomes engaged with what happened to Medgar, the more Dixie becomes distant.  When it finally becomes clear that Bobby is going to proceed, she leaves him and they later divorce.  She, like many others, including Ed, think that Bobby is giving himself an impossible task.  Even the lead investigator Bobby hires, Charlie Crisco (William H. Macy), is dubious that anything will come of the effort.  Aside from the fact that many of the witnesses to the twenty-four-year-old crime are deceased, a great deal of the evidence has gone missing.  Further, two of the main corroborators of Byron’s story are sticking to the version of events that place the murderer in a town ninety miles distant from Jackson only an hour after the shooting.  In other words, it is a supposedly solid alibi.  Nonetheless, eventually a book comes to light in which a former member of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) turned informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Delmar Dennis (Jim Harley), talks of Byron admitting to the murder at rally in 1964.  Bobby and his two investigators go to meet with Delmar, who corroborates the story but is hesitant to be put on the stand.  Only promises of protection convince Delmar to testify.  Still, this is not quite enough to get the indictment.  One key piece of evidence is the gun, which Bobby remembers one day had been kept as a souvenir by his former father-in-law.  This makes the prospect of indictment possible, but he tries to keep it secret for some time, including from Myrlie, so as not to cause a tumult.  However, word leaks to the press and it does not reflect well for the DA’s office.  With this comes increasing death threats against Bobby and his family, including his new wife, Peggy Lloyd (Susanna Thompson).  As a result, Bobby is about to be reassigned when Myrlie delivers the missing piece: the original trial logs.  With this new vote of confidence, the trial is scheduled and it becomes a sensation.  Byron is extradited to Mississippi from his home in Tennessee, but is defiant as ever.  Most of what is presented is similar to the material given decades previously, with the exception of Delmar and two others who claim to have heard Byron talk about killing Medgar.  Each time, though, the defense is able get them to admit that they had never actually heard Byron identify Medgar by name.  Because of these incidents, Byron is cocky enough to confront Bobby in the courtroom bathroom and proclaim that there will never be a jury in the state of Mississippi that will convict a white man of killing an African American.  Byron nearly goes so far as confessing to the crime.  From there, it goes to closing arguments, with the defense focusing on the three extra witness and trying to get the jury to see them as unreliable.  Deliberations go on for hours, and word gets around that unless a verdict is soon returned, Judge Hilburn (Terry O’Quinn) will declare a mistrial.  This has Byron gloating, though it does not last long when the jury finally comes back to the courtroom.  Despite warning against any emotional outburst, Myrlie cannot help but exclaim when the word “guilty” is read by the foreman.

Following the guilty verdict, Ghosts of Mississippi concludes with Myrlie giving a speech before an excited crowd outside the courtroom.  Speech is probably the wrong word.  Somebody asks her how she feels, and all she can think about is how long of a journey it has been to see justice done.  This sentiment is an answer to the question asked in the introduction.  God would respond by saying there is no time limit on doing the right thing.  We may not always do what we should in the moment, but His mercy is such that when we approach Him with a contrite heart, we can improve our lot.  The process can be so difficult, and this is what the film beautifully illustrates.  One aspect that I could not bring out in my synopsis to a satisfactory degree is the struggle experienced by Bobby the longer he looked into the matter.  At one point, somebody calls his personal residence with a bomb threat, causing him to flee with his family to a hotel for a night.  In the moment, he questions even the wisdom of integration, not because it is a bad idea, but because of those like Byron who reject it so vehemently.  The racist’s behavior is made all the more perverse when you see him justifying his ludicrous ideas with Scripture, and reading the Bible while in court.  It is enough to make one want to hate the man, but Myrlie has a wonderful quote from Medgar on that feeling.  She says that the civil rights leader used to say that the only person that suffers when you hate is yourself.  It drives a person to do terrible things, and this movie (not to mention things going on in our country today) prove how true is this thought.  It is also not what Jesus taught us to do, and no amount of cherry picking from the Word in order to absurdly underpin racism is going to change that fact.  God loves us all, and it is these kinds of ideas that motivates Bobby’s work.

There is also much to love about Ghosts of Mississippi.  Doing the right thing can be easy, but it does seem like the more important is the thing, the harder it can get.  This is as important to remember then as it is now.