[Huffpoo] 'Free State of Jones' - Three quarters of a century ago, "Gone with the Wind," a film that mythologized an Old South of wealthy planters and obedient slaves, premiered in Atlanta amidst great fanfare and public interest. This week, a very different sort of film about the South of the Civil War and Reconstruction era ‐ "Free State of Jones" -- will have its premiere, and as we commemorate the 150th anniversary of the War and Reconstruction and struggle through our own time of social and racial divisiveness, the public would do very well to take the film’s measure.
That is because "Free State of Jones," challenges our many misconceptions of the Civil War and Reconstruction and can promote a dialogue about what may have been possible more than a century ago ‐ and what is very much possible in our own day. "Free State of Jones" is based on a true story of interracial resistance to the Confederacy in Civil War Mississippi.
It is the story of how a white farmer from humble origins named Newton Knight came to see how the Confederacy favored the rich planters at the expense of men and women like himself and chose to organize a rebellion aimed at establishing a terrain of freedom, a "free state," in the county of Jones.