"Mississippi Burning" has both insight and intelligence and it is an incredibly uncompromising scrutinization of how racism blighted American society and it is frightening to think the residents of Jessop in Mississippi possess minds much smaller than their town. This film also prompts you to seriously examine your own conscience in relation to the matter of the race issue, but how many people will actually be enthusiastically prepared to carry out such a thing? And how many of us will be shocked to discover something of Mayor Tilman in ourselves: we know all about what is going on and yet we choose to do nothing about it? That is the real lasting power of this superb film and that is why it will continue to have great longevity and deservedly so.