Mississippi Burning: historical analysis of civil rights violence

Mississippi BURNING -- CRIME OR TERRORISM

Background of Historical Circumstances:

The movie Mississippi Burning (1988) is a fictionalized account based on the real life occurrences in the summer of 1964 when three civil rights workers were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi. The civil rights workers were engaged in organizing demonstrations and boycotts among the black population in Mississippi and also in organizing voter registration to encourage southern blacks to use their voting rights to accomplish meaningful social change.

At the time, the entire community was completely infiltrated by the Klan and Klan sympathizers, including the offices of the mayor and the sheriff's office. The civil rights workers were pulled over by a deputy sheriff who was also a Klan member, held in jail, and then released at night so that they could be followed, abducted, driven to a secluded area, beaten with chains and clubs, and finally shot. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI or "the Bureau") sent investigators within a few days after the three civil rights workers were reported missing in an area of Mississippi known to be extremely hostile to northerners and especially to the civil rights movement for obvious reasons.

Crime or Terrorism?

The line between crime and terrorism is sometimes quite blurry, especially where terrorist or quasi-terrorist actions are motivated for the purpose of monetary gain. In many cases, the identical criminal acts can meet the definition of crime or terrorism, depending mainly on the underlying mindset and motive on the part of the criminals. Under modern criminal justice definitions, acts of terrorism are also criminal but not all criminal acts necessarily involve terrorism.

Because the specific criminal actions engaged in by the Ku Klux Klan were committed without any profit motive and solely for the purpose of creating fear and intimidation among the black population, their crimes of arson, assault, kidnapping, and ultimately, murder constitute terrorism, by definition. In general, the crimes of the Ku Klux Klan against southern blacks were committed for the purpose of terrorizing and intimidating them, as well as motivated by a sadistic impulse among many of the perpetrators. In particular, the terrorist acts were intended to ensure that blacks were too fearful of reprisals to exercise their fundamental constitutional voting rights.

Law Enforcement Tactics:

The FBI undoubtedly employed illegal and ethically questionable tactics in investigating the case although those tactics may have been justified from the more general point-of-view. At the time, the complete infestation of Ku Klux Klan members into the Mississippi communities involved made it virtually impossible to pursue investigative leads in the approved method. The fact that the local police authorities and local governing officials (like the mayor) were all of the same mindset as the perpetrators and that a deputy sheriff was involved first-hand in the murders virtually ensured that the crimes would remain unsolved unless the investigating authorities deviated from the normal guidelines for criminal investigations.

Nevertheless, the specific tactics used by the FBI agents were themselves criminal actions that, in other circumstances and certainly nowadays, would have resulted in charges of official misconduct, criminal prosecutions of the agents involved ironically) for civil rights violations, as well as civil claims against the agents personally and the Bureau. The agents illegally abducted the mayor and terrorized him with the implied threat of castration. They coerced information from the deputy's wife, (who was not involved at all in the crimes), exposing her to grave danger and causing her to be subjected to a beating from her husband. They perpetrated another abduction in connection with a mock lynching of an uninvolved Klan member for the purposes of enlisting his cooperation as an informant. While it was not covered in the film, evidence that came to light much later suggests that the Bureau also used a known Mafia hitman to terrorize and intimidate information from the suspects.

Ethical Analysis:

Because the film opens with the murders of the civil rights workers and leaves no doubt as to the guilt of those responsible, it is difficult to sympathize with their deprivation of fundamental constitutional rights by the FBI agents who extracted the information necessary to solve the crime and formally charge the individuals involved. However, the wider implications of such practices by law enforcement would undermine some of the most important protections against government abuse and suspend many of the constitutional rights that distinguish the United States from typical police states.