The story behind "Free State of Jones"

[struggle4progress]

CBS NEWS June 5, 2016, 10:01 AM

... Knight was a poor white farmer from Mississippi who in 1863 abandoned the Southern cause, and spent the rest of his life fighting against oppression ...

"If you owned 20 slaves, you were exempted from the draft ... But poor folks who owned no slaves had to go and fight and die, so <they> could keep owning slaves and get richer" ...

... Newt Knight had several families -- his first with a white wife, his second with a former slave named Rachel. Dorothy Knight Marsh and Florence Knight Blaylock are Newt and Rachel's great-granddaughters. They say people tried to outright deny their family history. "Hell, yeah," said Dorothy. "Oh, yes. Some still do here," added Florence ...

In Newt's final acts of defiance, he chose to be buried next to Rachel -- black and white together in the graveyard -- against Mississippi law ...

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-story-behind-free-state-of-jones/

[unapatriciated]

1. Thank You

[appalachiablue]

2. K & R. Very interesting history, thank you.

[fasttense]

3. And the TN county called the state of Franklin tried to secede from the confedercy too

Not all Southerners were in support of the rich slave owner.

[MinnieBlum]

4. Smithsonian article on Free State of Jones

"Neo-confederates" (aka white supremacists) have been getting vicious on twitter about this movie. Notably calling Matthew McConaughey a "traitor to the South" and a "mudshark" (had to look that one up, apparently they are referring to the fact that McConaughey's wife is Afro-Brazilian). This is Trump's base, folks.

There were numerous rebellions throughout the South by Southern Unionists. The FSOJ rebellion is of particular interest because it united Confederate deserters, the wives and children of Confederate soldiers and runaway slaves as active combatants.

Its leader, Newton Knight (who entered into a common-law marriage with a former slave Rachel who was his wartime ally, chief spy and supplier for the Knight Company - marriage between blacks & whites being illegal in Mississippi) became an important figure in the Republican Reconstruction government, charged with defending the rights of freedmen and fighting the KKK.

On twitter, the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus posted that they had screened the movie already and gave it great reviews.

Newt Knight's core belief was that poor whites and blacks should be united by class, not divided by race.

[link:http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-free-state-jones-180958111/|

[yurbud]

5. your last sentence shows why this story isn't very well known.