Freedom on My Mind

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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This being an election year, we start thinking about voter registration. Despite any difficulties faced today, it used to be worse. “Freedom on My Mind” is a documentary that looks back on the 1961 to 1964 Mississippi voter registration movement. It involved murder.

The first black farmer who attempted to register was fatally shot by a Mississippi State Representative, E.H. Hurst. He was never prosecuted.

Witnesses were murdered. Three civil rights workers died. Violence marked that period of civil rights upheaval.

Directed in 1994 by Connie Field and Marilyn Mulford, “Freedom on My Mind” is composed of personal interviews, rare archival film, and television footage. Those interviewed include Bob Moses, Victor Gray Adams, Endesha Ida May Holland, and a number of Freedom Summer volunteers. The soundtrack comes from authentic Delta blues and gospel songs.

The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party recruited a thousand students from around the country to come down to Mississippi to help with voter registration. They put together a delegation of “sharecroppers, maids, and day-laborers that challenged the all-white delegates” for the 1964 Democratic National Convention. But their effort to replace the state’s delegation failed.

Nonetheless, all these efforts eventually succeeded. In 1965 Congress passed the Voting Rights Act. By 1990, Mississippi had more elected Black officials than any other state in the country.

Presented by the R.O.S.E. Diversity Group, “Freedom on My Mind” is screening at Tropic Cinema.

“Freedom on My Mind” won the Grand Jury Prize Best Documentary when it premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 1994. And it was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Documentary Feature that same year.

Variety called it “a landmark documentary that chronicles the most tumultuous and significant years in the history of the civil rights movement. A must see.”

As follow-up: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was a landmark piece of federal legislation that prohibited racial discrimination in voting. Congress amended the Act five times to expand its protections. In 2021, the Supreme Court reinterpreted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, substantially weakening it.

Nevertheless, since it was enacted the Voting Rights Act has increased voter turnout and voter registrations, particularly among black people.

Thanks to the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party whose members had freedom on their mind.

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com