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Mississippi Burning: Gene Hackman And Willem Dafoe

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Mississippi Burning
The movie Mississippi Burning starring Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe follows the story of two FBI agents and their team investigating the murder of two white and one black civil rights workers in Jessup county, Mississippi. This movie takes place in 1964, a turbulent time in the southern United States involving the Ku Klux Klan and their violent responses to the expansion of African American rights, especially the right to vote. The movie examines racial tensions in the South and how intervention from the federal government can help, or in some cases hurt, the African American community in their fight against the Klu Klux Klan. Often times members of the Klan are police officers or judges making it hard to arrest, let alone …show more content…

This movie is loosely based on an FBI investigation from the 1960’s, but they stay true to what life was actually like in the south during the time period that the film is set in, which is why this movie is an important educational tool. The movie is not being used in class because it is a cinematic masterpiece, but because it accurately expresses the hardships that African Americans in the south face and the difficulties that authorities faced in convicting people who committed these civil rights crime. The movie does an incredible job of depicting these realities through this particular story, which is why it is important to show this movie in school. It is important to keep in mind that this story is just one example of a civil rights crime in the south. There were thousands of crimes similar to this where the criminals never even got arrested because of all the difficulties the authorities would face in doing so. Mississippi Burning is a great movie to show in U.S government class because it accurately reflects the struggle of African Americans in the south in the 1960s and the trouble that Authorities had in converting civil rights

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