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Mississippi Burningdistorts history•y BENJAMIN P, CHAVIS. J*pBit MM Afttf contrttftjtmi wrtur•tnlhnt tlit wlw nfra im u«l| 14years old she vu brutally beaten in Winona, Mm , along with civilrights activists Fissit LouHamer, Lawrence Buyot andAnnellc Ponder, Local law'Y'he film “Mississippi Burning it currently receiving nationa media attention. The movietahout the murder of ChaneyGoodman, threecivil rights workers in Mississippitn 1964. recently captured the cover of TIME magazine It hasbeen reviewed extensivelyenforcement officers were responsible for the beating, yet the FBI suggested to the activists, their faces swollen and bruised, thattvtry major daily newspaper wherever the film has openedMany film rsviawtrs arcacclaiming the film These review-they had actually attacked eachother, u, . ■%' ■%; '■; ■ XFTAnother panelist. Bob Zellner,told of accompanying RitaSchwerner. wife of one of the slaincrs conveniently miss the movie’s major fault “Mississippi Burning elevates the FBI to heroic proportions when, in truth, that agency was more a part of the problem than the solution.At the same time, the filmtotally ignores the very people who were heroic--the civil rights activists who built a movement inMississippi. In the movie African Americans are simply background and the movement isnon-existent.A recent edition of CBS-TV’scivil rights workers, to the site of the disappearance, where theywere chased by a white mob to a local motel where investigating FBI agents were staying. When the FBI agent opened the door and recognized the two organizers. he asked in panic, “Why areyou ail here? You’ll get us allisNightwatch’’program aired adiscussion by three civil rights workers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee(SNCC) who worked in Mississippi in 1964. Their comments showed clearly how grossly the role of the FBI was distorted in the film. ? “-.S'- * ,v?-- ^Judy Richardson, veteran SNCC organizer and associate TV producer of the second “Eyes on the Prize,“ stressed the indomitable courage of the local African American community in Mississippi, who housed civil rights workers investigating the disappearance of their three missing colleagues.It is up to all of us to correct the record. We must make sureJune Johnson, whose family was long a bulwark of the movement in Greenwood, Miss., spoke of the FBI’s collusion with thelocal Mississippi police. She’?SI; ^sfp * rpi fit-wherever the film is shown, the media is encouraged to report the true story of Mississippi in 1964 and today. We must not allow the real history of Mississippi and the civil rights movement to be burned by this movie.
Newspaper Details
Call and Post
Cleveland, Ohio, US
Thu, Feb 16, 1989
Page 7
Full Page
Clipped by
Rotten T.
USA 29 Mar 2022
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