Freedom on my Mind: Mississippi Voter Registration in the 1960's
(Freedom Summer activists sing before leaving for Mississippi in June of 1964). "A generation ago, Mississippi was a state like no other. Its blacks were free in name only, second class citizens in a system unchanged since the turn of the century." Freedom on my Mind (1994) is a wonderful documentary about the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964, starting with events in 1960, and ending with the disillusion of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). The stories of dozens of activists (some well-know, others forgotten) and reals of archival footage create a powerful story about racism, the civil rights movement, the dead-end of electoral politics, and the seeds of the Black Power movement and uprisings across the latter half of the decade. The Thirteenth Amendment was ratified in 1865. In response, Mississippi becomes the first of the former Confederate states to enact laws (Black Codes) limiting the rights of blacks. Other Southern states followed, and th...