The Free
State of Jones
Louis Proyect
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
Like last
year’s “Trumbo”, “The Free State of Jones” is guaranteed to earn my vote for
best film of 2016 for its combination of film-making genius and political
commitment. If “Trumbo” might have been a success with someone other than Bryan
Cranston in the title role, it was his presence that made you feel like you
were watching the legendary screenwriter himself rather than an actor. Matthew
McConaughey elevates “The Free State of Jones” in the same way. Present in
every scene, he is utterly convincing as the anti-secessionist guerrilla leader
who was the walking embodiment of what Noel Ignatiev called the Race Traitor.
Written and
directed by Gary Ross, “The Free State of Jones” is everything that the
overhyped “12 Years a Slave” and “Django Unchained” were not. It is an honest
attempt to engage with the historical period it portrays even if it takes
liberties with the events surrounding the rebellion of Newton Knight. As I will
point out later in this article, they made for a more powerful film with a
singular vision even if the truth was sacrificed.
After
covering the film, I will discuss the actual historical record contained in
Victoria Bynum’s “The Free State of Jones”, upon which the film was based.
While hardly a film to be taken seriously, I will also say a few things about
“Tap Roots”, the 1948 film based on Mississippi journalist James Street’s novel
of the same title that was a loose adaptation of the Newton Knight story. The film
is entirely forgettable if not unbearable, as well as a symbol of Hollywood’s
racism, even when it decided to make a film based on ostensibly anti-racist
material.
We first
meet Newton Knight in a bloody battle that is about as graphic as any Hollywood
film I have seen since “Saving Private Ryan”. Serving as a medic, Knight is
overwhelmed by the severed limbs and ruptured abdomens that are beyond any
doctor’s ability to treat. When the battle subsides, he meets up with men from
Jones County who have ended up in the same regiment as him, a common feature of
the bond of geography and ideology in both North and South.
When Knight
learns that soldiers who own “20 Negros” are being sent home to look after
their properties, he is in disbelief. Like most men from Jones County, he owned
nothing but the log cabin he lived in and the hogs and corn field he looked
after. They were yeoman farmers with almost no class interest in dying on
behalf of the plantation owners who seceded from the Union. As the cry went up from
the guerrilla movement, they saw it as a “Rich Man’s War and a Poor Man’s
Fight”.
When a
conscripted teenaged nephew is soon killed in another battle, he resolves to
take the dead body back to Jones County where he can get a proper burial even
if this means being charged with desertion.
Back on
native ground, Knight soon becomes a target of local Confederate law
enforcement for both being a deserter and interceding on behalf of neighbors
who have been forced to turn over corn and pigs to the army as part of a hated
wartime tax. When they pursue him with bloodhounds, he manages to find refuge
in the swamp with a band of runaway slaves. He is led to them by a slave named
Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who eventually becomes both his lover and a spy for
the pro-Union armed struggle Knight will lead.
As the
class conflict between poor farmers and armed Confederate tax-in-kind agents
deepens, Knight decides that the only recourse is to build a popular resistance
based in the swamp that the enemy’s horses cannot negotiate. Once they settle
in, their headquarters becomes a staging ground for raids on the Confederate
troops and the slave-owners whose interests they protect. It also becomes a
place where their yeoman values are implemented in a kind of rough-hewn commune.
Runaway slaves are treated as equals and when they are not, Newton Knight steps
in to defend them against racism.
Seen in
terms of genre, “The Free State of Jones” follows in the footsteps of “The
Adventures of Robin Hood”, the 1938 vehicle for Errol Flynn, and the more
recent “Braveheart”. When it comes to battles between yeoman farmers and an
oppressive, bloodsucking elite, it is natural to cheer for the underdog. The
Sheriff of Nottingham to Newton Knight’s Robin Hood is one Lieutenant Barbour
who views the pro-Union guerrillas as the lowest scum on earth, particularly as
race traitors. Another villain is James Eakins, the plantation owner who beats
Rachel for the offense of eavesdropping on his daughters’ spelling lessons. Her
only desire is to become literate, a crime in the eyes of the Mississippi slave
masters.
The film
tracks the battles between Knight’s militia and Confederate troops sent in to
smash them and restore law and order in Jones County. Before each battle,
Knight rallies the troops in speeches that are a mixture of scripture and
Jeffersonian yeoman values. His commitment to racial and social equality
continues even after the Civil War is over. He takes the side of former slaves
as they exercise their right to vote even after it becomes obvious that the
South will remain as oppressive as ever. His only recourse is to live among
people, both Black and white, who share his values in the outskirts of the
village of Soso in Jones County. If Mississippi and the USA for that matter
choose segregation, he persists in building counter-institutions that
correspond to his democratic and anti-racist values including the right of
people to love each other whatever the color of their skin.
As a
subplot that is thematically related but historically problematic, we see
crosscuts to the trial of Davis Knight in 1948. He was the great-grandson of
Newton Knight who was charged with violating the Mississippi’s
anti-miscegenation laws. Not only is he a symbol of the ongoing fight against
racism but a reminder that the Deep South was a deeply segregated place until
recently. If Jim Crow disappeared in the 1960s, you cannot help but be reminded
of the more recent period when cops can act like the KKK wearing a badge.
Before
becoming a film-maker, Gary Ross worked on the presidential campaigns of Ted
Kennedy, Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton. One might assume that there is a
connection between his 2012 “The Hunger Games” and his most recent film, since
both include protagonists taking on evil plutocrats. As it happens, the new
film is based on American history even if Ross takes liberties.
Ross
probably was conscious of rewriting a history that he was intimately familiar
with. In an interview [1] with
Slash film, he describes his engagement with the Civil War scholarship:
It was a
tremendous amount of research. I don’t think I did anything but read for a
couple of years. And I mean scores of books. I was a visiting fellow at Harvard
for a couple of years. I studied under the tutelage of a professor there named
John Stauffer, who was head of the American Civilization Department. I spent a
lot of time in Jones County visiting it and meeting the local people and
getting the local flavor and doing kind of a visceral history.
He even
understood that a version of the traditional happy ending for “The Free State
of Jones” would have been a much worse falsification of history than any
liberties he took with the events described in the film:
Well, you
know, that version would have been the white savior movie. That version would
have been, “Oh, there’s a triumphant victory, and everything is fine,” and we
tie it up with a Hollywood bow and there’s a happy ending. But we all know
there wasn’t a happy ending. No sooner was technical emancipation granted than
the former Confederates got their land and their power back and began passing
laws which were called The Black Codes that were a form of re-enslavement and
driving people back to the plantation, driving freed men back to the
plantation.
If Victoria
Bynum’s “The Free State of Jones” is a benchmark for the film’s veracity, it
gets high marks in many ways. First and foremost, it describes the social
conditions of the county’s yeoman farmers accurately. These were people who
relied heavily on the animals they raised and the corn they used to feed them,
without which they faced certain ruin. Ross creates a world in his film that
evokes the Piney Woods region of Mississippi that was inhospitable to cotton growing
and as such made the rise of an agrarian bourgeoisie impossible.
Who were
these remarkable people who went against the values of the slave-owners?
Considering the stereotypical view of white Southerners that persists to this
day, Gary Ross deserves to be honored for telling the kind of story that was
not even found in Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States”. The
name of Newton Knight does not appear at all.
The Knight
family came from North Carolina, where they were small farmers and forced to
seek new land in the deep south after tobacco plantations gobbled up most of
the available land. Their ancestors were members of the Regulator Movement that
was one of the first armed resistances to British rule in the colonies.
Suffering from onerous taxation, they took up arms against the wealthy. In
other words, it was exactly the kind of fight they would pursue decades later
in Mississippi.
While it is
probably unreadable, Jimmy Carter wrote a historical novel titled “The Hornet’s
Nest” that was a tribute to the Regulator Movement. The NY Times reviewed it in
2003:
”The
Hornet’s Nest,” according to the book’s acknowledgments, was seven years in the
making. And it’s somewhat sensational title refers not to Washington or
Congress or even Camp David, but instead to an obscure and ferocious enclave of
northern Georgia partisans and militiamen in the Revolutionary War, a
guerrilla-like group to which, in his recent memoir, ”An Hour Before Daylight,”
Carter says several of his ancestors belonged.
Another
important element in the film that is consistent with Bynum’s book is the
prominent role played by women as auxiliary fighters in Jones County. In one
dramatic highlight, Newton Knight arms a mother and her two young daughters and
steels their nerves to hold off a band of Confederate soldiers who come to
their farm to carry off livestock and crops.
From the
point of view of law and order in Jones County, the women were as much of a
threat as the men especially Rachel, who was a fighter for Black emancipation
as well as Newton Knight’s lover. Where Gary Ross took considerable liberties
was making her the slave of the aforementioned villainous James Eakins whereas
in fact she was actually his grandfather Jackie Knight’s slave. Despite his
connections to the Regulator Movement, Jackie Knight had no problems adopting
the mode of production that made the white race ready to fight for its
survival. While by no means as wealthy as the big agrarian bourgeoisie, Jackie
Knight had left yeomanry long behind him.
Another
liberty taken with historical accuracy was the portrayal of Davis Knight as
willing to go to prison for the love of his life. In reality, Davis Knight was
interested in one thing and one thing only, to establish his white identity.
Given the hell of Mississippi segregation, his decision was understandable.
What is
more difficult to understand is the effort of Newton Knight’s ancestors to
portray him as indifferent to Black lives and—worse—a common brigand. His son
Thomas wrote a book titled “The Life and Activities of Captain Newton Knight”
that embraced his Unionist stand but said nothing about his close ties to
African-Americans. His grandniece Ethel Knight went much further. In 1951 she
published “The Echo of the Black Horn”, a violent screed that accused him of
being a thieving traitor to the glorious Confederate cause. Above all, she
hated him for loving Rachel Knight—the act of a race traitor.
Unlike John
Brown, Newton Knight was not an abolitionist prophet. His main grievance was
effectively “taxation without representation” since he regarded the Confederacy
as illegal. Would he have had a different attitude if he had been a man of
property? Maybe so. At least he should be given credit for putting his life on
the line for the principles that the Republic stood for, even if the
Constitution regarded Blacks as only three-fifths of a man.
Ultimately
the salient message of “The Free State of Jones” is that class trumps race. In
the left’s perpetual engagement with the central conundrum of American
politics, there is a tendency to lose track of what motivates whites to make
common cause with Blacks. One of the most important points made in Victoria
Bynum’s book is the importance of class during the Civil War for the people of
Jones County that continued into the 20th century.
Abandoned
by the Republican Party after the end of Reconstruction, the pro-Unionist
yeoman farmers of Jones County were naturally drawn to the Populist Party that
essentially reflected their class interests. In 1892 20 percent of Jones County
voters cast their ballot for James Weaver, the Populist Party’s presidential
candidate.
The most
prominent leaders of the party in Jones County were the sons of Jasper and
Riley Collins, two of Newton Knight’s leading lieutenants. At the statewide
convention in 1895, they were elected delegates from Jones County. The racist
Democratic Party press assailed the Populists as “disgruntled and disappointed
office seekers” who hoped to seduce “Republicans and negroes” into voting for
its candidates. It also identified them with Radical Republicanism during
Reconstruction and warned that “the bottom rail will never be on top again in
Mississippi.”
Like Thomas
and Ethel Knight, the Populists eventually succumbed to racist pressures and
abandoned their natural allies. As a sign of the confused politics of the Deep
South, poor farmers voted for a bigot like Theodore Bilbo who backed
progressive economic measures with racist invective.
James
Street was a native Mississippian who grew up near Jones County and hated
racial injustice but valued his Southern heritage. As such, it was natural for
him to explore the Newton Knight story and turn it into a novel loosely based
on his exploits. Wikipedia has a highly revealing story on his most unusual
death:
Street died
of a heart attack in Chapel Hill, N.C., on September 28, 1954, at age 50.
He was in
Chapel Hill to present awards for excellence in radio broadcasting at a
banquet, for which the main speaker was a “Reporter From the Pentagon” (as
described by Scott Jarrad, a radio journalist who was to receive an award, who
did not give the man’s name). According to Jarrad, the “Reporter from the
Pentagon” made a pure power politics argument in favor of preventive war
against the Communist nations. Street, who was to present the awards, speaking
after that main address, vehemently attacked the position put forward by the
“Reporter from the Pentagon,” in a spontaneous rant Jarrad described as “an
explosion,” laced with mild profanity; “in a word, he was magnificent.”
Following
that rant, however, again according to Jarrad, Street presented the
broadcasting awards warmly and politely. Jarrad specifically mentioned the firm
and affectionate handshake from Street at the presentation of the award.
However, shortly after the ceremony, Street “laid his head on the table like a
baby,” dead of a fatal heart attack. Jarrad speculated that the “explosion” of
Street’s vehement rant may have been the stress that caused his fatal heart
attack.
I can only
say that I am surprised that “Tap Roots”, the 1948 film based on his
fictionalized account of Knight’s pro-Union guerrilla warfare, didn’t do him in
four years earlier.
This was a
film that said virtually nothing about the pro-Union sympathies of the Jones
County fighters. It revolved around the futile campaign of a plantation owner
named Hoab Dabney to disaffiliate from the Confederacy because the people of
Lebanon Valley only sought to work in peace. Dabney is played by Ward Bond, a
vicious McCarthyite. When the Confederate cavalry annihilates his followers, a
Whig newspaper man played by Van Heflin who fought on his side denounces him as
a trouble-maker who misled his followers into a useless rebellion. In one of
the odder scenes in this very odd movie, Dabney wanders about the battlefield
talking to himself after the fashion of King Lear.
The
screenplay was written by Alan Le May, the author of “The Searchers” that was
adapted for John Ford’s classic film. The sheer stupidity and bad politics of
this film makes you wonder if “The Searchers” has been overrated, as I
have long suspected.
Let me
conclude with an excerpt from Victoria Bynum’s take [2] on
“Tap Roots”, which is contained on her invaluable website Renegade
South [3].
The movie
makers treated viewers to a sort of poor man’s Gone with the Wind—except that
Hoab Dabney himself (the cinematic version of Newt Knight) appeared as anything
but poor, living in his recently-departed father’s opulent mansion with slaves
that he apparently inherited from dad! Never mind that neither the real Newt
Knight—nor his father—owned slaves. I had to laugh, though, when Hoab Dabney
first appeared on screen. Veteran actor Ward Bond appears as a wealthy,
middle-aged Hoab, complete with mutton-chop sideburns, a crisp white shirt,
black vest and cravat, and sporting a gold watch chain that hangs fetchingly
across his portly mid-section!
Let’s just
say that Ward Bond is no Matthew McConaughey. . . .
What were
Tap Roots’ filmmakers thinking, you ask? They were thinking of Gone with the
Wind, that’s what. Never mind that that wildly successful movie was dedicated
to the principles of Lost Cause history, with its images of a solid white South
and happy slaves. The plot lines, clichés, and characters of Gone with the Wind
were shamelessly borrowed, but with a twist—and it’s only a twist—of Southern
white opposition to secession from the Union. There is no people’s movement
here—only the Dabneys’ assertion of their “freedoms” and dominion over their
beloved Lebanon Valley. The men who join the provincial, hardheaded Dabneys in
asserting their individual prerogative to remain “neutral” during the war
display no agency and no ideas; they merely follow. Although the phrase, “rich
man’s war and poor man’s fight,” is briefly flashed on the screen, it has no
relevance to the story presented.
Source URL: https://portside.org/2016-07-02/free-state-jones
Links:
[1] http://www.slashfilm.com/free-state-of-jones-gary-ross-interview/
[2] https://renegadesouth.wordpress.com/2015/10/11/tap-roots-1948-a-review-of-the-first-free-state-of-jones-movie/
[3] https://renegadesouth.wordpress.com/
[2] https://renegadesouth.wordpress.com/2015/10/11/tap-roots-1948-a-review-of-the-first-free-state-of-jones-movie/
[3] https://renegadesouth.wordpress.com/
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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