1964 - Freedom Summer: American Experience (2014)

Freedom Summer – a documentary film about the civil rights campaign in Mississippi in the summer of 1964 – was shown on US television (PBS) in 2014. It is an episode of the long-running program American Experience (season 26, episode 6). Here is some basic information about it:

** Written, produced and directed by Stanley Nelson

** Original music composed by Tom Phillips

** Consultant: Bruce Watson

** Run time: 114 minutes

Many people were interviewed for this film. Many of them participated in the Freedom Summer campaign as organizers or volunteers. The list is quite long, but it is included here to illustrate how much work the filmmakers put into this product. Here are the names in the order of appearance:

** Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, volunteer

** Patti Miller, volunteer

** Tracy Sugarman (1921-2013), illustrator, volunteer

** Dorothy Zellner, organizer

** Larry Rubin, organizer

** Rita Schwerner, organizer

** Hollis Watkins, organizer

** Anthony Harris, Mississippi resident

** Bruce Watson, author

** William Winter, state treasurer

** William Scarborough, Citizens’ Council member

** John Dittmer, historian

** Charlie Cobb, organizer

** Julian Bond, organizer

** Eleanor Holmes Norton, organizer

** Ivanhoe Donaldson, organizer

** Robert “Bob” Moses, organizer

** Charles McLaurin, organizer

** Peggy Jean Connor, Mississippi resident

** Reverend Ed King

** Linda Wetmore Halpern, volunteer

** Susan Brownmiller, volunteer

** Chris Williams, volunteer

** Dave Dennis, organizer

** Daisy Harris, Mississippi resident

** Roscoe Jones, Mississippi resident

** Chris Hexter, volunteer

** Jan Nave Barnes, Miss Mississippi 1963

** Karin Kunstler Goldman, volunteer

** Pete Seeger (1919-2014), folk singer

** Sherwin Markman, convention delegate

** Taylor Branch, historian

Between the talking heads there is a lot of contemporary footage, photos and film. Since we are talking about the 1960s, all the old footage is in black-and-white. But we cannot complain about that.

The timing of this film is significant. It was shown in 2014 in order to mark the fifty-year anniversary of the Freedom Summer campaign that took place in Mississippi in 1964.

While the focus of the film is on the campaign of 1964, the film covers more than this. In order to provide some historical background and to explain how the campaign was prepared, the film begins around 1960 and ends in 1965.

The Freedom Summer was not about the right to sit at a lunch counter; nor was it about the right to have a seat on the bus. This campaign had a higher and wider objective. In fact there were three objectives which were closely intertwined:

# 1. Voter registration of the black population

# 2. Freedom schools for the black population, not only children but also adults

# 3. The all-white delegation to the Democratic Party convention in Atlantic City should be disqualified and replaced by an integrated delegation that was more representative of the people who lived in the state of Mississippi

The first part of the film focuses on objective # 1; the second part of the film focuses on objective # 2; the third part of the film focuses on objective # 3.

Almost 1,000 civil rights activists were sent to Mississippi. They came from many other states. Some activists were black, but most were white. Volunteers had to apply to take part in the campaign. Some applications were denied. The volunteers were carefully selected and prepared for the campaign.

The organizers wanted to be sure that the volunteers knew what they were getting into. Taking part in the Freedom Summer campaign was not only a serious matter, it was a dangerous matter. The danger was illustrated when three activists who had been in Neshoba County went missing in June 1964. Here are their names:

** Michael Schwerner

** Andrew Goodman

** James Earl Chaney

Schwerner and Goodman were white and from New York, while Chaney was black and from Mississippi. After a search which lasted 44 days the bodies of the three young men were discovered.

The killing of these men showed just how dangerous it could be to be a civil rights activist in the state of Mississippi. Schwerner’s widow Rita Schwerner is one of the many people who are interviewed in the film.

One name is mentioned several times in this film: Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977). Fannie Lou Hamer was a black woman from Mississippi, a sharecropper, who wanted to register as a voter. When she did, she lost her job. But she was not intimidated by this fact. She continued to work for civil rights.

She was a member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party delegation that wanted to replace the all-white delegation in Atlantic City. President Johnson was afraid of her. He wanted to prevent her from addressing the convention in Atlantic City, but since he could not do that, he decided to call a last-minute press conference at the very moment when Fannie was going to address the convention.

Johnson knew the television stations would interrupt their coverage of the convention in order to cover his press conference. But his childish action backfired on him, because he had nothing to say at his press conference, and when the people of the press found out what he had done, Fannie’s speech was repeated in several news reports later in the day. In fact, her speech got more publicity than it would have if Johnson had just let her speak.

The Freedom Summer campaign was an important breakthrough for the Civil Rights Movement. In July, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In August of the following year, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which allowed every US citizen to register as a voter. No state was allowed to set up any bureaucratic obstacles if a US citizen wanted to register as a voter.

What do reviewers say about this film? On IMDb it has a rating of 84 per cent; on Rotten Tomatoes it has an audience score of 88 per cent. Both these ratings correspond to four stars on Amazon.

If you ask me, these average ratings are too low. Freedom Summer is a captivating, dramatic, and emotional film. It shows not only the importance of the campaign, but also the price the participants had to pay. I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars.

PS # 1. Stanley Nelson is also the writer and director of Freedom Riders, a documentary film about the Freedom Riders of 1961. His film about this campaign was shown on US television (PBS) in 2011, in order to mark the fifty-year anniversary of this chapter of US history.

PS # 2. Bruce Watson, consultant on the film and one of the many people who are interviewed in the film, is the author of the book Freedom Summer (2010, 2011).

PS # 3. Tracy Sugarman, one of the many people who are interviewed in the film, was an illustrator. Many of his drawings are shown in the film. He wrote a book about his experience in Mississippi which was published in 1966: Stranger at the Gates. It was reprinted in 2014.

PS # 4. Taylor Branch, one of the many people who are interviewed in the film, is the author of the book Pillar of Fire. It was first published in 1999.

PS # 5. The killing of the three civil rights activists in June 1964 is the subject of two movies and a documentary film:

** Mississippi Burning (1988, released on DVD in 2013)

** Murder in Mississippi (1990, released on DVD in 2008)

** Neshoba: The Price of Freedom (2008, released on DVD in 2010)

PS # 6. For information about Fannie Lou Hamer, see the following biography: For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer by Chana Kai Lee (1999, 2000).

PS # 7. Sherwin Markman, one of the many people who are interviewed in the film, was a Special Assistant to President Johnson, 1966-1968. In May 2014 he gave a sermon about the summer of 1964 in a Maryland church. His sermon “Tragedy and Triumph: The Summer of 1964” is available online.

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