Just as the Freedom Riders Civil Rights effort in 1961 was followed by the 50th anniversary “Freedom Riders” documentary by Stanley Nelson, so has the 1964 Freedom Summer campaign to get voting rights for disenfranchised African-Americans in Mississippi chronicled in “Freedom Summer,” Nelson’s striking new film, making its debut tonight on “American Experience” (PBS, 9 p.m., check local listings).
It chronicles the courageous, consolidated volunteer efforts by college students from the north to challenge the heavily restricted voting process in Mississippi, where population was nearly 50 percent African American but only 6 percent were registered to vote. All sorts of barriers were put in their way, from bogus “tests” to threats of job loss.
Volunteers were repeatedly told there might be violence and there was — three killed right off the bat. Yet it did not dissuade the effort and by the end of the summer, with a growing community buoyed by nightly meetings and songs, a freedom delegation challenged the official Democratic Party delegation at the 1964 Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, something that literally kept LBJ up at night.
Just as the campaign 50 years ago targeted Mississippi, so does the film, with very little footage of those who upheld the segregation laws. Did they melt away or do they held quiet grudges today? Why is the racist opposition so little depicted in such films?
But “American Experience” executive producer Mark Samels told me earlier this year, the film will indeed show on Mississippi Public Television.
“We’re not in this place anymore,” Samels said. “We’re not in the promised land yet, but we’re not where we were in 1964. And Mississippi is very much leaning into this right now. But I’m interested in their reactions as well, but I can tell you that from a public television standpoint, we’re going to be leaning into this with those Southern public television systems, for sure.”
“Mississippi is just like anywhere else in this country,” said filmmaker Nelson. “There are some people who are racist. There are some people who are not. There are some people in between. I do think one of the interesting things about Mississippi and the South in general is that there are lots of white folks in the South who have thought very deeply and honestly about race. There’s a lot who haven’t, but there are a lot who have. So that William Winter, who is a former Governor of Mississippi, is in the film. You know, he’s thought very, very long and hard about race. Mississippi is still almost 50 percent black, so you have to think about race in Mississippi. It’s not something that you can ignore.”
Dave Dennis, whose emotional speech at a memorial service for a slain volunteer is the key moment in the film, says a lot of the efforts to achieve the votes are ongoing on the 50th anniversary.
“We’re looking at how we focus on voter registration,” he said. “We’re looking at education, where we’re trying to launch this effort around quality education as a Constitutional civil right; where we’re looking at trying to lift this bar around education for poor kids and kids of color. And one of the issues around that is, of course, looking at what we’re doing in the state there is also bringing in kids this summer, as we did in 1964, who’ll be canvassing the state of Mississippi; is trying to get a Constitutional amendment that addresses the issue around education and the definition of quality education for the state is. So this issue and this is also a cross section black, white, politicians, middle class, upper class, lower class people all working together, just as we did in 1964.”