Mississippi Messiah
Clay Haskell
Dylan Nelson
United States, 2022, 78 min.
In English.

Civil rights icon James Meredith never fit in -- not as the first Black student at the University of Mississippi, not as a civil rights leader on the Meredith March, and certainly not while endorsing ex-Klansman David Duke. Mississippi Messiah is a nuanced examination of Meredith's complicated life as a public figure.
Director's Statement
Documentaries about the American civil rights movement often focus on simplified, inspiring narratives that present a unified picture and weed out awkward dissenters. That’s not what you’ll get watching Mississippi Messiah. “James Meredith is an individualist,” civil rights leader Myrlie Evers-Williams says in our film – but that’s only one aspect of his fascinating personality. Meredith is not a hero or a martyr. He is a human being who catalyzed tremendous social change and who is still fighting to improve his world. We believe James Meredith’s story rewards exploration, in part because it provokes questions as much as it provides answers.
Category: Documentary.
Friday, April 22
The Screening Room
6:00pm
Filmmaker in Attendance
More in Documentary
-
Rebel with a Clause
Brandt Johnson
United States, 2025, 86 min.One fall day in 2018, Ellen Jovin set up a folding table on a Manhattan sidewalk with a homemade sign that said “Grammar Table.” Right away,... more ›
-
Wonders of The Universe
Bruna Benčić
Croatia, 2024, 5 min.At first we wanted to make a film only about the solar system, but we expanded the subject a bit. Approximately to the whole Universe. In the film, we... more ›
-
Wrecked a Bunch of Cars, Had a Good Time
James P. Gannon
United States, 2024, 12 min.In America, the things we create we also find a way to destroy. We follow four people who have never met, but will smash each other to smithereens in a... more ›