Mississippi Burning – Movie Quotes

— Tell me, how does a woman like that end up...
— With Shithead in there? You know what small towns are like. A girl spends high school looking for a guy to marry, then her whole life figuring out why.

It's ugly. This whole thing is so ugly. Do you know what it's like to live with all this? People look at us and only see bigots and racists. Hatred isn't something you're born with. It gets taught. At school, they said segregation was in the Bible. Genesis 9, verse 27. At seven years of age you get told it enough, you believe it. You believe the hatred. You live it, you breathe it. You marry it.

These Ku Kluxers are better with lynchings than with lyrics.

We got two cultures down here. White culture and a coloured culture. That's the way it always has been. That's the way it always will be.

— You like baseball, Anderson?
— Yeah, I do. You know it's the only time a black man can wave a stick at a white man and not start a riot.

They want me to say that two white boys also died helping Negroes help themselves. They want me to say we mourn with the mothers of these two white boys. But the State of Mississippi won't allow these boys to be buried in the same cemetery as this Negro boy. I say, I have no more love to give. I have only anger in my heart today and I want you to be angry with me! I am sick, and I am tired and I want you to be sick and tired! I am sick and tired of going to funerals of black men who've been murdered by white men. I am sick and tired of the people of this country who continue to allow these things to happen. What is an "unalienable right" if you are a Negro? What does "equal treatment under the law" mean? What does it mean liberty and justice for all"? Now I say to these people look at this young man and you'll see the face of a black man but if you look at the blood, it's red! It is like yours! It is just like yours!