''The Message from Mississippi'' is a state-sponsored 1960 segregationist propaganda film produced by the

Mississippi Sovereignty Commission The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (also called the Sov-Com) was a state agency in Mississippi from 1956 to 1977 tasked with fighting desegregation and controlling civil rights activism. It was overseen by the Governor of Mississippi. T ...

, a state government agency established to promote and defend segregation in the wake of the

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregat ...

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

decision desegregating public schools. In the film, Mississippi governor

Ross Barnett Ross Robert Barnett (January 22, 1898November 6, 1987) was the Governor of Mississippi from 1960 to 1964. He was a Southern Democrat who supported racial segregation. Early life Background and learning Born in Standing Pine in Leake County ...

says that Blacks in Mississippi preferred the state's segregated way of life. The Sovereignty Commission's work included investigations of civil rights groups and propaganda to support segregation including pamphlets and funding for media programming. The commission also produced the film '' Oxford, U.S.A.'' following events at the University of Mississippi when it was integrated with federal forces. Approximately $30,000 was paid to Dobbs-Maynard Advertising Agency in Jackson, Mississippi to make the film when all approvals were finally received. Further expenditures were requested to promote the film and a special committee was established to investigate spending on the film.

Reception

A review in the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' of Dawn Porter's documentary film '' Spies of Mississippi'', which was adapted from a book by Rick Bowers, describes ''Message from Mississippi'' as "an astonishing work of delusional contemporary propaganda." The article quotes the film's claim that: “Out of the statewide pattern of segregation, mutual respect and cooperation among the races has arisen a productive, law-abiding way of life.”

Legacy

PBS aired a snippet from the film as part of its ''American Experience'' programming on the

Jim Crow The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...

era. The ''Message'' also may have been the name of a project of the Commission according to some personal records that have been archived.

References

1960 films Segregation {{italics