The Message from Mississippi is a state-sponsored 1960 segregationist propaganda film produced by the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission,[1] a state government agency established to promote and defend segregation in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision desegregating public schools.
[4] The commission also produced the film Oxford, U.S.A. following events at the University of Mississippi when it was integrated with federal forces.
[5][6] Approximately $30,000 was paid to Dobbs-Maynard Advertising Agency in Jackson, Mississippi to make the film when all approvals were finally received.
[7] A review in the Los Angeles Times of Dawn Porter's documentary film Spies of Mississippi, which was adapted from a book by Rick Bowers, describes Message from Mississippi as "an astonishing work of delusional contemporary propaganda."
The article quotes the film's claim that: “Out of the statewide pattern of segregation, mutual respect and cooperation among the races has arisen a productive, law-abiding way of life.”[8] PBS aired a snippet from the film as part of its American Experience programming on the Jim Crow era.