Freedom on My Mind

"Freedom on My Mind" is an amazing documentary of a period of American history that makes the viewer cringe that it happened. Mississippi in 1960 was fully segregated with political leaders, like like Gov. Ross Barnett, providing an unblushing rationale.

The film really has two parts. The first, shorter part, focuses on Bob Moses and the voter registration drive. The second, larger section, examines the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and its efforts, led by Fannie Lou Hamer, to replace the Mississippi Dixiecrats at the Democratic National Convention in 1964.

The documentary balances well historical film footage with 1990s commentary by participants in the Freedom Summer of 1964, including Bob Moses, Marshall Ganz, Heather Booth, and others. Endesha Ida Mae Holland, who was raped by a white man at age 11, went from the Mississippi Delta to volunteering with the registration drive as a teenager, to getting a PhD in American Studies. Her commentary and that of Bob Moses is the most striking.

Also very insightful is the description of relationship between African American and white volunteers in the registration movement.

This a humbling documentary to watch.