A new film documenting the actions of the attorneys who took part in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement will have a free screening at Vicksburg’s Strand Theater at 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 11.
In the 1950s, major events in the Civil Rights Movement were taking place. But Mississippi’s only accredited law school did not accept Black students, so during that decade the state had a total of four Black lawyers—only three of whom would take on civil rights cases. The story of attorneys R. Jess Brown, Carsie Hall, and Jack H. Young is told in The Defenders: How Lawyers Protected the Movement. The film also tells the story of the hundreds of lawyers and law students from across the country who saw what was happening and came to Mississippi to take up the fight.
Brown worked for many years out of an office in Vicksburg, where in 1965 he represented a group of citizens arrested for participating in a local voting rights action. Hall and Young were based primarily in Jackson, but all three attorneys worked cases across Mississippi. Between them, they represented Mack Charles Parker, Clyde Kennard, James Meredith, the Tougaloo Nine, Freedom Summer participants from across the state, more than 300 Freedom Riders, and more than 600 people arrested while taking part in the Jackson movement.
Jackson-based media company Red Squared was commissioned by the Foundation for Mississippi History to produce the film for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
“We were fortunate to be able to conduct Interviews with people directly connected to this important story, including Reuben Anderson, Marian Wright Edelman, and Constance Slaughter-Harvey,” said Sarah Campbell, one of the film’s producers and director of programs and publications for MDAH. “We also were able to draw on the state archives’ rich holdings of archival news footage, documents, and photographs to immerse viewers in the era.”
Following the screening of the 40-minute film there will be a discussion and question-and-answer session with Campbell and Defenders director Roderick Red. The Strand Theater is located at 717 Clay Street in Vicksburg.
