Mississippi Burning

Mississippi Burning tells the real life story about the disappearance and murder of three civil rights workers in the 1960s. The murders occurred in a small Southern town where segregation exists and there is still a lot of racism and tension between the black and white citizens. There are two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents played by Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe. The agents travel to Mississippi to investigate the murders. There is conflict between the two agents on how to investigate the crime. They have different methods and attitudes towards the town people and a lot of the tension in the movie comes from the difference between the two. The agents go back and forth in disagreement but they eventually realize that they must come together when the dead bodies of the missing civil rights workers are found. The agents realize that many of the townspeople are against them, including the local sheriff’s office. They realize that they must work together in order to take down the branch of the Ku Klux Klan that is responsible for these crimes. The agents decide to follow one of the young Ku Klux Klan members and try and listen in on Klan meetings. They drive around town with the Klansmen in their car so that the others will think that he is working with them. They then drop him off in the black part of town. All of this is take make the young Klansman confess to what he knows about the murders. The FBI agents soon learn that one man for sure was involved in the murders of the civil rights workers. They also discover that this man assaulted the wife of one of the agents. Agent Anderson, played by Gene Hackman, finds the man in a barbershop and beats him in anger. The other agent tries to stop him but eventually he lets Agent Anderson finish beating the man and lets him go. Mississippi Burning a dramatic film and the fact that it is based on a real life story only adds to the drama. It is a tension filled look at some of the harsh realities of race relations in America.