Freedom on My Mind

Director: Connie Field, Marilyn Mulford
Screenwriters: Michael Chandler

Institute History

Description

In the Mississippi of 1961, everything was segregated, and there were virtually no black voters. When Bob Moses, who grew up in the Harlem projects and attended Harvard University, entered the state to start the Voter Registration Project, the first black farmer he registered was shot and killed by no less than a Mississippi state legislator. By 1965, however, the registration books were open, and today Mississippi has more elected black officials than any other state.

What happened in the Interim—particularly during the summers of 1963 and 1964—is the focus of Freedom on My Mind, a rich and powerful delineation of one of the most dramatic chapters in the American civil-rights movement. A thorough look at the formation of the Freedom Democratic Party in Mississippi and the role of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) in that state's voter-registration drive, the film shows how thousands of white northerners (most of them students In their twenties} united with local blacks (many of them sharecroppers} to form a coalition that helped sound the death knell or segregation in the South In spite of many frustrations and sometimes tragic circumstances, this coalition prevailed, eventually taking their demands for equality to the Democratic party's 1964 convention. This was a crucial turning point for both the Democrats (still recovering to this day) and the turbulent decade that was the sixties.

For the courageous Mississippians who led this challenge, Freedom on My Mind is a very personal story of empowerment and transformation, a deeply stirring chronicle throbbing with the human pulse that distinguished such previous documentaries as Harlan County, U.S.A. and The Times of Harvey Milk.


Friday Jan 21 10:40 pm
Holiday Village Cinema III

Sunday Jan 23 1:00 pm
Holiday Village Cinema I

Wednesday Jan 2S 6:30 pm
Park City Library Center

Friday Jan 28 10:40 am
Holiday Village Cinema III

$7.00

— Robert Hawk

Screening Details

Sundance Film Festival Awards

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