Not all white men in the South believed in slavery and white supremacy. I know about Newton Knight because I had a teacher from Mississippi who told me about him.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/06/24/movies/free-state-of-jones-review-matthew-mcconaughey.html?referer=https://www.google.com/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2016 11:17PM by anybody.

Okay, thanks for sharing. This just made my bucket list of movies to see this summer.

I just finished ordering my great grandpa a tombstone where he's buried, and his baby daughter. They've been gone over 100 years, without a marker. I'd say it's about time they both shared one for their gravesite.

He served in the Civil War as a Union soldier. He was a chief scout for Allen Pinkerton, and a messenger for General Sherman. He'd relay messages from Sherman to General Grant and back again. He went with Sherman following the Civil War to Wyoming which is where he eventually met and fell in love with my great grandma. They were May-December, but were as much in love as anyone could be.

So I got a whole chapter in Civil War history just studying family history lol. That's something we just find out as we go... genealogy is history revisited.

I'm excited about the tombstone finally being set on their graves this summer. I'm including his Civil War history on the back side of it. I'd say they're overdue - he and his baby girl.

:)

There are several local boys in the film a few,of whom are also musicians. Look up Pine Belt Pickers or Paul Johnson in Mississippi!

https://youtu.be/OdPF75lULFI

Pine Belt Pickers



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2016 09:46AM by siobhan.

https://youtu.be/ezBZxr1VRe4
Paul Johnson



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2016 09:46AM by siobhan.

I'm planning on going, tried to talk my TBM husband into going but he's too afraid of 'losing the spirit' so I'll be going alone.

We broke the Sabbath for about the 1000th time in a row and saw it yesterday. My wife wanted to see it because her father was from southeast Mississippi, and she may have had ancestors who were involved in the story. Her grandfather was born in 1895 and was a Primitive Baptist preacher, which was Newton Knight's sect as well. Knight lived until 1922, so for all we know, my wife's grandfather may have known him. He almost certainly knew some of Knight's numerous children.

It was a very good movie, although the story was Hollywoodized and a lot of facts were omitted and others invented. It's good to see movies made about little-known historical stuff like this. It helps the public to understand that the Civil War wasn't strictly north vs. south. A LOT of southerners didn't want to secede, but they had no choice.

The movie depicted Knight's relationship with the former slave, Rachel, but it didn't go into the fact that they had several children together, and that their children from their other relationships intermarried with each other over the years. Interracial marriage was illegal until the 1950s, so Knight's descendants formed quite a large interracial community amongst each other in that area. I thought that the interspersing of the story of Knight's great-grandson's 1940s court case into the plot was a master stroke, bringing the whole issue of racial prejudices into modern times.

Being a southerner, I appreciate seeing movies made about these issues. I'm still waiting for somebody to make a good movie about the Creek Wars, in which Andrew Jackson, Sam Houston, and David Crockett all fought together.

I saw it and thought it was a little dark and contrived, but it was a dark period in history. People need their story to be told in order to heal, even if the process covers generations. It's okay if agendas drive storytelling because divine forces drive agendas.

I loved the cinematography, with the southern landscapes and flora. Matthew is always fun to watch. Great at delivering the deep one-liners.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/27/2016 07:14PM by bradley.

https://renegadesouth.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/part-2-yvonne-bivins-on-the-history-of-rachel-knight/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/2016 12:56AM by anybody.