Freedom Summer

Nonfiction filmmaker Stanley Nelson, whose previous Civil Rights era documentaries include Freedom Riders (VL-7/11) and The Murder of Emmett Till (VL-7/03), brilliantly captures the passion, anguish, and fury of Mississippi's 1964 summer months in this PBS-aired film. In the spring of 1964, only 6.7 percent of the African American population in Mississippi was registered to vote. Beginning in June of that year, more than 700 student volunteers converged on the state, joining forces with local organizers to help bring voting rights to Mississippi's politically disenfranchised black population. However, many Mississippians were not amenable to this demographic expansion of political participation: the state Democratic Party was particularly hostile, although its stranglehold on the process was boldly challenged at the Democratic National Convention by the upstart Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party featuring Fannie Lou Hamer, a former cotton plantation worker turned activist. In cities and towns statewide, those involved in trying to expand voting rights were the target of brutal violence—demonstrated most notably in the murders of three young civil rights workers and the burnings of 35 churches. Combining rare footage with insightful interviews, this powerful documentary is highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (P. Hall)