So some good DOES come from crappy movies....
Notable reporter Jerry W. Mitchell of the Clarion-Ledger in the heart of the Old South, Jackson, Mississippi, was duly honored by Colby College with the 2006 Eligah Parish Lovejoy Award for his courageous reporting that led to the conviction and imprisonment of some of the Ku Klux Klan's biggest scumbags.
Such as Sam Bowers (murdered Vernon Dahmer in '66), Bobby Cherry (murderer of four girls at a Birmingham church in '63), and Ray Killen (the murderer of three Freedom Riders in '64: see or read "Ghosts of Mississippi").
Wonderful man, obviously, and incredible work that resulted in the jailing of men who had long escaped their just rewards for the killing of innocents and heroes alike.
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One small problem: to quote the Portland Press Herald from today (Monday 9/18/06)...
"Mitchell, talking to an audience at Lorimer Chapel (at Coiby), said his early interest in the Klan's racists activities began when he saw the movie 'Mississippi Burning'. He said he was infuriated, that is was unfair when killers walked free 'even though everyone knew they were guilty'."
"MB" came out in 1988. I didn't see it until a couple of years later, and sorry, but it made me quite ill. This was many years ago, when I thought more in black and white than the nuanced grey that the world truly exists in. And this film was complete and utter bullshit. Popeye Doyle didn't do a damn thing in the South, and Bobby Kennedy did NOT force Hoover's hand to use the FBI to promote truth, justice, and the American way until AFTER the heavy lifting was complete (and the dying, too). Complete bullshit. The FBI did not come swooping in to the Freedom Riders rescue, as shown in "MB". It just didn't happen that way.
It was the Freedom Riders themselves/ "The Children" (David Halberstam) who put their lives on the line every day they spent in their home states or far from home. I know since I attended Miami University, whose Western College was a staging area for some of the '60's Freedom Riders. And no goddamn FBI agents were there (or Jackson or anywhere else for that matter) to protect them.
The REAL heroes were the mostly black college students (and many whites, as well) and plain ordinary folks who rode buses, intergrated restaurants and diners, and simply tried to register to vote in the hell that was the Deep South of the 1960's.
For some reason my late father loved this same movie and I told him the same thing I'm writing in this here blog.
Maybe Mr. Mitchell gave the PPH a throwaway line to placate some local reporter whom he assumed didn't know the true history of the Civil Rights Movement. Either he has poor taste in movies or he thinks we're rubes up here in Maine.
But still, there is no denying his accomplishments.
Such as Sam Bowers (murdered Vernon Dahmer in '66), Bobby Cherry (murderer of four girls at a Birmingham church in '63), and Ray Killen (the murderer of three Freedom Riders in '64: see or read "Ghosts of Mississippi").
Wonderful man, obviously, and incredible work that resulted in the jailing of men who had long escaped their just rewards for the killing of innocents and heroes alike.
____________________________________________________
One small problem: to quote the Portland Press Herald from today (Monday 9/18/06)...
"Mitchell, talking to an audience at Lorimer Chapel (at Coiby), said his early interest in the Klan's racists activities began when he saw the movie 'Mississippi Burning'. He said he was infuriated, that is was unfair when killers walked free 'even though everyone knew they were guilty'."
"MB" came out in 1988. I didn't see it until a couple of years later, and sorry, but it made me quite ill. This was many years ago, when I thought more in black and white than the nuanced grey that the world truly exists in. And this film was complete and utter bullshit. Popeye Doyle didn't do a damn thing in the South, and Bobby Kennedy did NOT force Hoover's hand to use the FBI to promote truth, justice, and the American way until AFTER the heavy lifting was complete (and the dying, too). Complete bullshit. The FBI did not come swooping in to the Freedom Riders rescue, as shown in "MB". It just didn't happen that way.
It was the Freedom Riders themselves/ "The Children" (David Halberstam) who put their lives on the line every day they spent in their home states or far from home. I know since I attended Miami University, whose Western College was a staging area for some of the '60's Freedom Riders. And no goddamn FBI agents were there (or Jackson or anywhere else for that matter) to protect them.
The REAL heroes were the mostly black college students (and many whites, as well) and plain ordinary folks who rode buses, intergrated restaurants and diners, and simply tried to register to vote in the hell that was the Deep South of the 1960's.
For some reason my late father loved this same movie and I told him the same thing I'm writing in this here blog.
Maybe Mr. Mitchell gave the PPH a throwaway line to placate some local reporter whom he assumed didn't know the true history of the Civil Rights Movement. Either he has poor taste in movies or he thinks we're rubes up here in Maine.
But still, there is no denying his accomplishments.
posted by joe sweeney at 10:17 PM
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