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With its talking-head interviews, minimal voice-over narration, and archival material, Freedom on My Mind (1994) is a textbook example of an expository documentary. The most traditional form of nonfiction film, expository documentaries address viewers directly in order to clearly get across their points or position. This style does not challenge or expand the documentary format, but it is most effective for social filmmakers who want to take a position on history, society, or politics. Directed by social documentarians Connie Field and Marilyn Mulford, Freedom on My Mind revisits the struggle to register African American voters in Mississippi from 1961 to 1964. The recollections of those who fought to end disenfranchisement are vivid and inspiring, compensating for the conventional nature of the expository style.
Field and Mulford begin their account in 1961 when young Harvard student and activist Bob Moses arrived in Mississippi to become director of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee's voter registration drive. Using poll taxes, arbitrary residential requirements, and subjective literary tests, the state had consistently denied African Americans the right to vote, or even to register, for decades. The activists who were part of the SNCC's Mississippi Project were determined to register black voters, but the state was not going to make it easy. Shortly after Moses accompanied a black farmer to register and vote, the farmer was shot by Mississippi state legislator E.H. Hurst. The murder was ruled justifiable homicide.
Moses helped develop a strategy dubbed Freedom Summer in which he recruited 1000 mostly white college students to assist the SNCC during the summer of 1964. The interracial coalition drew media attention to the struggle of African Americans to vote in the South. After three students, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered, the eyes of the country were on Mississippi.
The coalition peaked with the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which boasted 80,000 members. Their goal was to attend the 1964 Democratic Convention to challenge the all-white group of state delegates and to have their voice heard in a national forum. But, their efforts failed, resulting in a profound disillusionment among some of the activists, which had long-term effects, according to Moses.
However, the experiences of the participants that summer changed the country by pointing the media spotlight on the disenfranchisement of African Americans in the Deep South, leading to the Voter Registration Act of 1964.
Field and Mulford use period photographs and archival film and television footage to re-create a sense of time and place. The visual artifacts are reinforced by the Delta blues and Southern gospel music on the soundtrack. But, the interviews are the heart of the documentary. The recollections of the participants, who were in their 50s when the film was shot, put a personal face on the Civil Rights Movement. Relegated to the history books, the events of the late 1950s and early 1960s are often discussed in terms of dates, speeches, and events. But, Freedom on My Mind reminds us that history is really the story of people; in this case, a group who took a stand on the true meaning of American democracy at the risk of their own lives. Their recollections are eloquent; their bravery inspirational; their idealism an artifact of another era.
Freedom on My Mind premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994, dominating the buzz at the fest. It garnered the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary. It was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary. As a film that preserves a part of American history, it received the Erik Barnouw Award, which is bestowed by the Organization of American Historians.
Director Connie Field is a social documentarian best known for The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter. In her youth, she worked as an organizer for the anti-Vietnam War movement and for the women's movement. When she went to work in the distribution department of Newsreel, a media organization that made films about social issues, she turned her activism into a vocation. Field also worked for Leo Hurwitz, one of founding members of the Film and Photo League of the 1930s and chair of NYU's Graduate Institute of Film and Television. Later, she moved to San Francisco to join Cine Manifest, a group that produced political feature films. While at Cine Manifest, Field heard about a "Rosie the Riveter reunion," a get-together of women who had worked in factories during World War II. With the encouragement of her colleagues, she decided to make a documentary about their experiences, which became The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (1980) .
Field's approach to her work was shaped by the changes in historical perspective that occurred during the 1960s. Socially aware activists became acquainted with histories that were not included in most textbooks. They learned about social movements of the past that led to reforms such as Social Security and unemployment insurance. They discovered the untold histories of women, African-Americans, and Hispanics as well as the work of Studs Terkel and Howard Zinn who championed history as told by the ordinary person and their experiences. Those influences led Field to focus on oral history as her key storytelling mechanism. In her work, the personal is the political; that is, from the intimate stories of individual experiences can come a picture of a larger issue.
Her films also include Forever Activists: Stories from the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (1990), the seven-part series Have You Heard from Johannesburg? (2010), and Al Helm: Martin Luther King in Palestine (2014). She is currently working on The Whistleblower of My Lai, scheduled for release in 2017.
By Susan Doll
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From the film's website:
In 1961 Mississippi was a virtual South African enclave within the United States. Everything is segregated. There are virtually no black voters. Bob Moses, enters the state and the Voter Registration Project begins. The first black farmer who attempts to register is fatally shot by a Mississippi State Representative. But four years later, the registration is open. By 1990, Mississippi has more elected black officials than any other state in the union.
Freedom On My Mind vividly chronicles this complex and compelling history of the Mississippi voter registration struggles of 1961 to 1964: the interracial nature of the campaign, the tensions and conflicts, the fears and hopes. It is the story of youthful idealism and shared vision, of a generation who believed in and fought for the principles of democracy.
Freedom On My Mind dramatically interweaves powerful personal interviews, rare archival film and television footage, authentic Mississippi Delta blues, and vibrant Movement gospel songs. It emphasizes the strategic brilliance of Mississippi's young, black organizers. Barred from political participation, they create their own integrated party - the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). They recruit a thousand mostly white students from around the country to come to Mississippi, bringing the eyes and conscience of the nation with them.
The students and the MFDP organizers put together a delegation of sharecroppers, maids, and day-laborers to challenge the all-white delegates in the 1964 Democratic National Convention. They demand equality and justice from the highest official in the land - the President confronting the country's leading politicians to live up to the democratic values they profess to hold.
Freedom On My Mind provides a sweeping panorama of a turbulent time: a time that tested America's purpose and its commitment to democracy. The legacy of that time, the achievements and failures, remain with us today. Freedom On My Mind will enable viewers of all backgrounds to better understand and appreciate this uniquely American legacy.
