Murder in Mississippi

Veteran exploitation filmmaker Joseph P. Mawra (White Slaves of Chinatown) directed this race-baiting drive-in feature inspired by the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers later chronicled in the mainstream feature Mississippi Burning. This film, however, is pure exploitation, patterned along the lines of ’60s potboilers like The Black Klansman and Girl on a Chain Gang. Derek Crane (Sin in the Suburbs) plays the racist Sheriff Engstrom, who harasses and contributes to the murders of several Northern students who come to his Georgia town in order to register black voters. Pretty Carol Lee Byrd (Sheila Britt of Come Ride the Wild Pink Horse) is kidnapped by a deputy, and when her actor brother (Dick Stone) comes to her rescue, he is set up with a black prostitute. Finally, Carol’s black friend Luther (Lou Stone) gets her free, alerting the FBI as to the heinous crimes committed by Engstrom and his men. Sam Stewart, Wayne Foster, and Otis Young (The Last Detail) co-star., Civil-rights workers are arrested and murdered by local police, and their female companion is forced to become a sex slave.