Recipient of a 2024 Discretionary Grant.
The terrifying and dangerous state of Mississippi in 1964 during Freedom Summer comes alive through the eyes of a little-known high-risk civil rights program, Wednesdays In Mississippi (WIMS). This is the untold story of teams of strategically properly attired Black and white women who flew into Jackson, MS, from Northern cities during the 1960s to help shift a violently reactionary state climate toward integration, voting rights, and women's empowerment. The brainchild of Dorothy Height, the brilliant National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) president and well-connected Jewish activist Polly Spiegel Cowan, NCNW’s first-ever White volunteer, WIMS’ mission is to serve as scrupulously subtle change-makers. In this lyrical and moving story, their collective experience unfolds chronologically as an interwoven ensemble narrative. Rare archival material evokes the challenges the women faced with a visceral sense of place and time--as well as extreme risk. This is a story we rarely see — about strong friendships between Black and white women that explore the challenges and rewards of intersectional cooperation. While we are currently engaged in the important work of dismantling the impact of centuries of white supremacy and the systems it upholds, this film reminds us and celebrates those who walked before us, who carved a path, who––despite the barriers of sexism, racism, and class––dared to raise their voices and work together to change their world.
Marlene McCurtis (Producer/Director) is a current Lavine/Better Angels Fellow and Firelight Media Documentary Lab and Sundance Sustainability Humanities fellow alum whose short Here I’ll Stay was co-produced by Firelight Media and Field of Vision and premiered at the New Orleans Film Festival. She has produced and directed Emmy-nominated series for A&E, PBS, and NatGeo. Currently, she is in post-production on Wednesdays in Mississippi, her first independent, self-directed feature documentary, selected for the Curcalorus Film Festival Work-in-Progress Lab, the Athena Film Festival Work-in-Progress Lab, and the Oxford Film Festival Film Female Directors Retreat. Her latest short, The Circle, a collage of spoken word and movement, written and performed by system-impacted artists, has screened at the Social Justice Film Festival, the Global Peace Festival, the Monologue and Poetry International Film Festival, and the Justice on Trial Film Festival.