Movie Review: Free State of Jones
During the American Civil War (1861-1865), a group of men and women banded together to create an independent community in Mississippi. They were farmers, poor people, slaves, runaways, deserters. They recognized that they were fighting “a rich man’s battle, but a poor man’s fight,” in that they were being used as fodder to maintain the socioeconomic system of the slaveholding south at the time.
Free State of Jones (2016), starring Mathew McConaughey, tells the story of Newton Knight, a southern farmer, Confederate deserter, and inspiring leader of the Knight company.