Mississippi burning

The disappearances of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, three teenage civil rights activists involved in a voter registration drive in Mississippi, are the subject of the movie's real-life inspiration. The authorities had protested that the entire affair was a publicity ploy concocted by Northern liberals and outside agitators. Still, when their dead bodies were ultimately discovered, their corpses were unfalsifiable testimony against them. The incident became one of the turning points in the long journey toward racial justice in our nation, the day Rosa Parks took a seat on the bus, and Martin Luther King Jr. entered Montgomery.

Two FBI agents are conducting an inquiry into the disappearances of the civil rights activists. Few men could be more unlike one another than these two agents: Ward (Willem Dafoe), one of Bobby Kennedy's bright young men from the Justice Department, and Anderson (Gene Hackman), the good old boy who used to be the sheriff of a community somewhat similar to this one. Anderson thinks it's best to adopt a low profile and stay near the barbershop to identify potential offenders.

To make a statement, Ward mobilizes the National Guard in addition to hundreds of federal agents to look for the missing employees. As a result of their dislike for one another. We meet various locals, including the mayor, the sheriff, and a deputy, who all seem to be acting innocently. The wheels of justice begin to spin, leading to the arrest and prosecution of Klan members one by one through interrogations, police work, searches, and tips.

The triple homicide contributed to the Civil Rights Act of 1964's passage in July by igniting public anger over the savage racist violence that ruled the Deep South. They have remained a symbol of American racial politics — Ronald Reagan famously began his 1980 campaign for president close to Philadelphia, Mississippi — and they highlight the obstacles that still impede Black Americans from exercising their fundamental right to vote.