Freedom on My Mind

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.

Activists look back on the Mississippi voter registration drive from 1961- 64. It's a documentary. It's the story of a revolution. For 2020, there is new resonance. The world has changed but much has not. While some in the black and white footage are saying words that civil society does not today, so much of this looks very similar to what's happening right now. The world has come a long way but in some ways, there is so much further to go.

"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.

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.

So many documentaries are stiff and academic or so obviously manipulative... this is none of those things. It is so HUMAN, so REAL... and is such a powerful story of a fundamentally important period in the history of the USA, every bit as important as the Boston Tea Party or the "shot heard 'round the world" or that moment when "our flag was still there." These are perfectly ordinary people doing absolutely extraordinary things. Particular kudos to those in charge of research, who put together the archival footage - it absolutely immerses you in the time. As a Southerner, I heard things I still hear today... but I also was so inspired by the hard work and tenaciousness of the people who lead this movement - and the people who lead this movement were so imperfect, it makes it all the more glorious. Geesh but I loved this documentary!