Freedom on My Mind

"Freedom on My Mind" is a documentary about the efforts in the early to mid 1960s to get the state of Mississippi to move into the modern age. Up until then, the state deliberately did all it could to prevent black people from registering to vote...either by intimidation or violence. The story starts in 1961 and continues up through the DNC convention in 1964 when it tried (rightfully so) to seat its own delegates instead of the ones imposed on blacks in Mississippi.

If you watch this expertly crafted and very compelling film, please watch the credits to see where many of the interviewees are today. I was so proud to see that one of the black people who had been molested later went on to become a professor...and it made me tear up a bit. Well worth seeing and a great history lesson. It's a shame, however, that most Americans today don't even realize all this happened...and I taught US history, so I know that we have so quickly forgotten our past.

I'm not going to pull any punches here: this documentary, made when I was in my early 30s, about the Mississippi voter rights demonstrations has always been difficult for me to watch. (And I'm white and grew up in the South, so I can only imagine the difficulty it presents to the BIPOC communities.) The sheer brutality of the raw violence and the unrelenting psychological terrorism wrought by segregation and racism in the late '50s and early '60s never ceases to bring tears to my eyes, as it has for at least 50 years since I was a small child. But the most disturbing aspect of the film is how much systemic inequality remains, with many similar arguments still being spouted by the ignorant and frightened. Voting rights are *still* under attack in what were the "Dixiecrat" dominated states, like Georgia and Texas, now GOP dominated. The "Black Lives Matter" movement and its most fierce detractors (All Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, etc.) directly echo the Civil Rights Movement of the '60s and it's staunch opponents. As with "hate crimes legislation," the notion that respecting and protecting certain groups of people who have been historically and typically targeted or are especially vulnerable to oppression is in some way granting them "special rights" over and above the majority of people is highly insulting and positively ludicrous. It's 2021, 55-60 years later, yet we're arguing with those same people and trying to fight the same battles. That's why the story, the footage, and the 1st-hand testimony of the people involved are still able to move me to tears. 9/10.

This is a very effective documentary which chronicles the civil rights struggle in the State of Mississippi during the 1960's. The alternating segments of interviews with actual participants and historical footage of the demonstrations and events at the time kept my interest to the end. I had not seen this film before and am very pleased that tcm was able to carry it. For me, not all documentaries succeed in what they set out to do, but this one did, at least in my view. It portrays a very important chapter of American history from which we can all learn.

As to the recent user review of January 18, 2017 describing the reviewer's personal experiences with racial segregation in central Florida, I will add that I grew up during the 1950's and 1960's in the northern town of Union, New Jersey and encountered many of the same racial prejudices there that the reviewer witnessed. The public schools were mostly segregated through the eighth grade, then through the sixth grade, and integrated in the upper grades only by financial necessity. The separation of the elementary schools, at least at my end of town, created resentment at the upper grades as the black students were clearly at an academic disadvantage following nine and then seven years of racial segregation. It wasn't until after I graduated from high school in 1967 when the federal government intervened and forcibly integrated Union's elementary schools. Beyond Union, most of the towns that surrounded us were completely off limits to African Americans. The towns that were most threatened by integration were the towns that were most affordable to black families who desired to leave Newark for a better life in the suburbs. Wealthier towns, such as Merrill Streep's native Basking Ridge (Bernards Township) were far more protected and insulated from the dramatic social upheaval that was occurring nearby because, for the most part, they were economically inaccessible to African American families from Newark who wanted to leave the city. I only write this because I have witnessed an enormous amount of hypocrisy and falsehood in my life, including my own, personal experiences regarding race as I was growing up in a northern town. I touched upon this theme in a novel that I recently wrote but that has not been finalized for publication.

I am a white Southerner. I have always considered myself Southern. I was born in a small Southern town in North Florida called Live Oak. I grew up in a small Southern town in Central Florida called Ocoee where the history of that town has a lot in common with what is stated in this documentary on the suppression of non-white voting dating to the 1920 massacre. Today that small Southern town, which before the 1920s was diverse in race, after the massacre that happened there, Ocoee remained all-white for 40 years.

When I hear about the horrible things that happened in this documentary, I know it's true. Even when I grew up in Ocoee in the 1980s, and I saw my elementary school only having two black teachers (both female, one Kindergarten the other 3rd grade, both I had as teachers) and one single black student (also female) and the racism by staff and students they endured was awful. And those of us who were white and stood up against it were treated no different than they were. They called us "N-- lovers" or just saw us as being black too and hiding in white skin. By Junior High (Middle School) our school was mainly white until a dilapidating mainly black school the next town over was combined into our school. And in 6th grade we had a "race riot". White children fighting and beating up black students and black students defending themselves and those of us in the middle beat up by the whites who believed we were no different than the blacks and the blacks fighting us because they didn't know we weren't racist against them, that was in 1988/1989. High School was more calmer in retrospect because Ocoee didn't have a High School at the time and we all mainly went to the High School in Winter Garden, FL which was highly diverse but while there there were incidences, it wasn't as bad as going to school in Ocoee.

I hear from some family members, or from others throughout my life that white people have it bad because non-white people have a voice now and they are taking away all their rights. None of their rights are being taken away except those that take away the rights of other people.

Documentaries like this remind me of a few things: non-whites, and especially black people, and especially in the Southern United States, are still to this day struggling against oppression. They just want equality. To be treated no better and no different than anyone else. It also reminds me of my childhood, which wasn't that long ago. I'm only 39. Which means it still goes on today. Ocoee has grown, it's gone from 7,000 people, mainly white to almost 50,000 people still mainly white but with a growing black community. The town I live in now, my hometown, I don't know...I still hear white people using racial epithets as if it's normal to do so. Ironically, the town itself is mainly non-white yet whites still control almost everything. There was an incident not too long ago at a hotel dwelling with racism against black people. Also, nothing will change until white people--and me being white I think I can say this--start recognizing they are not superior to other people not their skin color. No one is trying to take away your rights. They just want the same rights as you, and for the most part: they don't.

Documentaries like this are important. Sadly, they don't get watched by those who actually need to watch it.

I find it hard to believe that there are only five previous reviews of this documentary here on the IMDB. I don't find it hard to believe that they are all very positive. This is one remarkable movie.

I've watched a LOT of documentaries in my life. In fact, I've been making documentaries myself - on World War II - for some time now. So I have some definite views on what helps and hurts a documentary that deals with contemporary issues. (A documentary on France's King Louis XIV could be fascinating, of course, but that's a different animal.) These are the things that struck me as making this movie particularly powerful, in no particular order:

1. We see excerpts from interviews with a fair number of people who actually participated in the campaign for voter rights in Mississippi in the 1950s and 60s. They all speak with the authenticity of lived experience. We do NOT see talking heads, academics, or other scholars/"authorities" who have simply studied or reported on this era. While such individuals' books might be very interesting, they would make this documentary seem less immediate. Instead, it seems very immediate. You can't do that with a documentary about non-contemporary subjects, of course. But in this case, the talking heads approach would have been much less effective.

2. I was astounded/very impressed by the iconography. It's already great to have photos of the things being talked about. But very often, this movie uses archival film of the people and events being presented. Again, that makes it that much more immediate.

3. The principal interviewees are interviewed in natural settings, rather than in some studio. Again, that reinforces the realness of their stories.

My one suggestion: the people we see - and we see a LOT of people in this movie - should be identified with a caption every time we see them. It would be simple to add that to a new edition of this movie.

Kudos to everyone involved. This is one very impressive achievement that deserves to be much more widely seen.