FILM: Murder in Mississippi (1990)

Murder in Mississippi is a 1990 television film which dramatized the last weeks of civil rights activists Michael “Mickey” Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney, and the events leading up to their disappearance and subsequent murder in the summer of 1964. It starred Tom Hulce as Schwerner, Jennifer Grey as his wife Rita, Blair Underwood as Chaney, and Josh Charles as Goodman. Hulce received a nomination for Best Actor in a TV Miniseries at the 1990 Golden Globes.

As a historical docudrama, Murder in Mississippi precedes the storylines of both 1975’s Attack on Terror: The FBI vs. the Ku Klux Klan and 1988’s Mississippi Burning.

‘Murder in Mississippi is the title of a Norman Rockwell 1964 painting, depicting the same events. The painting is also known as: “Southern Justice.”