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- Title
Mississippi's Social Transformation in Public Memories of the Trial Against Byron de la Beckwith for the Murder of Medgar Evers.
- Authors
Hoerl, Kristen
- Abstract
In 1994, Byron de la Beckwith was convicted for the 1963 murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers. Journalistic coverage of the trial and the 1996 docudrama Ghosts of Mississippi crafted a social values transformation myth that depicted Beckwith as the primary villain of the civil rights past and cast his conviction as a sign that racism had been cleansed from Mississippi. Popular media naturalized this myth intertextually though narrative repetition and through symbolic cues that established the film as a source of historic understanding. These cues deflected critical attention from contemporary social conditions that have maintained racial inequity and continue to prompt racially motivated hate crimes
- Subjects
UNITED States; SOUTHERN States; EVERS, Medgar Wiley, 1925-1963; DE la Beckwith, Byron, 1920-2001; GHOSTS of Mississippi (Film); AMERICAN civil rights movement; CRIME &; the press; FILM criticism; ACTIONS &; defenses (Law); HISTORIOGRAPHY
- Publication
Western Journal of Communication, 2008, Vol 72, Issue 1, p62
- ISSN
1057-0314
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1080/10570310701828966