Black History Month Film Showing "Freedom On My Mind" February 10, 2011

Nominated for an Academy Award, this landmark film tells the story of the Mississippi freedom movement in the early 1960s when a handful of young activists changed history.

When Bob Moses came to Mississippi in 1961 to head up the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee’s voter registration drive, a Black man could be convicted of “eye rape” for looking at a white woman; all African Americans were denied the right to vote. The first man to accompany Moses to the courthouse to register was later shot dead by a state legislator.

We witness the growing confidence and courage of poverty-stricken sharecroppers, maids and day laborers as they confront jail, beatings and even murder for the simple right to vote.

In 1964, organizers, fearing for their lives and hoping to attract the attention of the nation, recruited 1,000 mostly white students from around the country to join them for Freedom Summer helping to transform political power in the South forever, leading to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Today Mississippi has more Black elected officials than any other state. Those who participated in the struggle took away a profound sense of possibility and a deepened commitment to justice. 1994, 110 min.

Sponsored by ANSWER Coalition—Act Now to Stop War & End Racism