Fighting to Remember Mississippi Burning

The Experiment

The Atlantic and WNYC Studios

President, Policy, Documentary, Joe, Law, Wnyc, American, Presidency, Supreme, Society & Culture, Congress, The, Racism, Court, State, History, Biden, Government, Race

4.5 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2022

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In June 1964, at the height of the civil-rights movement, the Ku Klux Klan burned a Black Methodist church to the ground in the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi, and murdered three civil-rights workers in cold blood. This crime became one of the most notorious of its era, shocking the nation on the eve of the passage of the Civil Rights Act and later inspiring a Hollywood blockbuster: Mississippi Burning.

But when the reporter Ko Bragg started questioning how this history is being preserved in Philadelphia, she was confronted with a town that would much rather forget its violent past. Bragg finds a few Black residents taking it upon themselves to keep the story of this crime alive, and she asks where the burden of safeguarding history should lie.

A transcript of this episode is available.

Further reading: “Who Will Remember the Mississippi Murders?”

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This episode of The Experiment was produced by Gabrielle Berbey, with help from Salman Ahad Khan. Editing by Michael May and Julia Longoria. Reporting by Ko Bragg. Fact-check by Naomi Sharp. Sound design by Hannis Brown with additional engineering by Jennifer Munson. Transcription by Caleb Codding.

Music by Naran Ratan (“East of Somewhere Else”) provided by Tasty Morsels. Additional music by Hannis Brown. Additional audio from Iowa PBS, HelmerReenberg, AP Archive, MGM, CBS Evening News, NBC News, C-SPAN.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just the heads up, today's episode contains a graphic description of violence.
0:06.0	This week we start things off with a trip to church, with some Sunday school kids and our guide.
0:34.4	It's recording.
0:35.8	Co-brack, freelance reporter for the Atlantic.
0:38.8	So don't push no buttons.
0:41.0	We're heading to Mount Zion to worship the Lord.
0:44.6	Mount Zion United Methodist Church is a fixture in the African-American community in Philadelphia.
0:52.9	Not the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, the small, small town of Philadelphia, Mississippi.
0:59.3	There's a little marker on Highway 16.
1:03.1	Once you get down, you're on Route 747, Mount Zion is kind of sits to me up on a hill.
1:08.9	My mom married my stepdad at this church and that's the church my stepdad grew up going to.
1:13.8	And so I've always been thinking about this church.
1:16.9	This church is famous in American history.
1:20.6	We're going on a little boat.
1:22.2	Oh, it's raining.
1:23.4	After you get out of the gravel driveway, there's a little walkway.
1:26.2	It's not a grand entrance. It's a very quaint, simple, southern brick church.
1:34.5	And the church.
1:36.1	And the church.
1:37.2	And the Atlantic church.
1:39.5	Oh, no.
1:43.6	And there's these wooden pews throughout.
	...

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