Ghosts Of Mississippi,

TIME CAPSULE

Medgar Evers is not a cinematic creation; he is the real thing. He was appointed the first field secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1954, after he was refused admission to the University of Mississippi Law School because of his race. According to his widow, Myrlie Evers, the slain civil rights leader dedicated his life to fighting for justice and equality. Because he wanted no publicity or glory for himself and because there was little or no media coverage of the very early 50's Civil Rights efforts in Mississippi, Evers became the "forgotten leader".

Evers had quite a dossier of accomplishments in the fight for Civil Rights. He was the first African-American to file for admission to the University of Mississippi, became the first Mississippi field secretary for the NAACP, investigated lynchings and murders (the most noted being the Emmett Til case), set up an "escape network" for threatened African- Americans to safely flee Mississippi, successfully fought against the biased written test and poll tax restraints that limited the black right to vote; launched state-wide registration drives; eliminated segregated and unequal education in Mississippi by filing a lawsuit on behalf of his son - Darrell Kanyatta Evers vs the State of Mississippi.

Byron de la Beckwith died in January of this year at the age of 80, survived by his wife and son. He was taken to the hospital from the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County, where he was serving a life sentence for the 1963 shooting of Evers.

Ghosts of Mississippi was a box-office disappointment, barely earning back its $36 million budget in its initial run. It hit US theaters on December 20, 1996, during a crowded holiday season. The flick's box-office performance was severely hampered by negative critical reaction to the film. Objections to the film, which places a white man as the hero, cut deeply into critical and public reaction, much like what happened to Mississippi Burning (1988) and A Time to Kill (1996).


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