Historical Cultural Analysis

The political, economic and social reality of slavery in U.S. history often justified the worst atrocities against African Americans. This was particularly true prior to the Civil Rights Movement and the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1965. Even though the Civil War ended and Lincoln freed the slaves, racism, prejudice, segregation and violence toward Blacks continued unabated well into the mid-20th century in American society. In "Crowd Cheered and Laughed at Negro's Horrible Death" and "Big Preparation Made for Lynching Tonight," we see ample evidence that horrible inhuman abuses were being perpetrated against African Americans in the 1930s. In the film "Mississippi Burning," set in 1960s Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement, we see that both Blacks and Whites who supported them were still being subjected to similar atrocities. In 2002, "Antwone Fisher" showed that racism and prejudice are covert if expressed at all in contemporary society, but African Americans still carry some of the burden of abuses against their culture in the past. Taken together, these historical accounts and films demonstrate that the Civil Rights Movement marked a turning point in race relations in American society. During this era, these documents and films will express what film critic Roger Ebert (p. 2) praises: "The Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960s was the finest hour of modern American history, because it was a painful hour in

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g murder, and even attacking national guards, there were no recriminations and no government or law enforcement intervention powerful enough to overcome them. We do so the beginnings of civil rights activism in the case of Claude Neal. While the Committee of Six who authorized the lynching expresses misgivings only over the "heavily armed and highly intoxicated crowd," both blacks and whites appealed for outside intervention to authorities: the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, (Schilb and Clifford, p. 594). If we examine two films with a focus on race, we can look at "Mississippi Burning," the story of three civil rights activists murdered in Mississippi, and "Antwone Fisher," the story of an African American man who needs to come to terms with his bitterness and anger over racism to find healing and happiness. These films demonstrate that things have changed in the U.S., radically since the time of the two accounts of murder presented here. However, change did not occur overnight. In the 1960s in the South, racism and horrific acts of violence against African Americans and their white advocates occurred frequently, often at the

Category: History - H