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Name: Period: Date: Ghosts of Mississippi Description: This film recounts the retrial and conviction of the assassin of Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers, some 30 years after the murder. Rationale: Ghosts of Mississippi provides students a deeper look into the Civil Rights Movement by illustrating the dangers of Civil Rights work and the legal system in Mississippi in the segregationist 1960’s. It shows a widow’s perseverance and crusade for justice, as well as a prosecutor’s commitment to righting an old wrong. The film also describes Mississippi’s shift over time from a state known for racism to one that would afford justice to the family of a slain Civil Rights activist. Objectives: Ghosts of Mississippi affords students from which to research important ideas and exercise valuable writing or verbal presentation skills. Discussion Questions: After the movie, be prepared to answer the following questions: Choose ONE 1. Prosecutor DeLaughter asserted that reopening the wound left by the Medgar Evers’ assassination and retrying a 70 year old man, cleansed the wound and allowed it to finally heal, rather than to fester and poison future generations. How did the retrial help to heal the wounds and injustice or how did the retrial unnecessarily opened old wounds? Three paragraphs. Complete with research. Intro- grabber, background and claim Address the prompt Conclusion- reflection 2. What did the assassination of Medgar Evers have in common with the tradition of lynching that had taken the lives of thousands of black people over the years since the Civil War? Research the word “Lynching” and add that to your answer. Also, print out a copy of the poem “Strange Fruits” and analyze ( analysis protocol) the poem and then write an analysis in one paragraph. 3. The film captures the truth of the Evers’ murder and in most respects is strikingly accurate. There are a few historical inaccuracies. Choose three of the following list of inaccuracies and write a brief paragraph on why you think the film’s writers chose to distort some details used to tell the story. Conclude your paragraph with an opinion about whether you, as the screenwriter, would have been creative with the facts: The window of prosecutor DeLaugher’s car was not smashed and painted with a swastika. The meeting in the courthouse men’s room between de la Beckwith and prosecutor DeLaughter didn’t happen. While there was a telephone threat that the DeLaughter house would be bombed, the DeLaughers did not flee their home in panic. It was District Attorney Peters and not DeLaughter who cross-examined the alibi witness, a powerful part of the courtroom drama. DeLaughter’s parents were generally supportive of him in the investigation and he was never a member of a country club. DeLaughter did not sing “Dixie” to his daughter to put her to sleep. The news conference after the verdict took place in an empty courtroom, not on the court house streets. 4. Create a well-researched time line of specific incidents in which you calculate the changes in the South between 1963, the year of Medgar Evers’ birth, and 1989, the year that de la Beckwith was finally found guilty of murder. Write a conclusion that suggests the importance of these years in terms of changing Mississippi to a state in which Medgar Evers’ widow and family receive justice. Include: Medgar Evers’ death MLK death When lynching became illegal What was the first case of a white man being convicted of killing of killing a black man? Civil Rights movement When the death penalty for rape was abolished When women got the right to sit on a jury When the death penalty could only be assigned by a judge Any other facts that seem Important to the development of the South.