30 Best Mississippi Burning Quotes

Deputy: You have to be a member to drink here.
Anderson: Member? A member of what?
[long pause]
Deputy: Member of the social club.

Ward: Some things are worth dying for.
Anderson: Down here, things are different; here, they believe that some things are worth killing for.

Anderson: [Anderson is in a barbershop, shaving Clinton's face with a razor blade and simultaneously interrogating him] This is tricky. They make it look so easy, don't they? I got a question for you, Clinton. You don't mind if I call you Clinton, do you? I feel like I know you so well. The way we have it, on the night of the murders... you made a short speech as the bulldozer buried the kids in the dam. How does Lester tell it? "Mississippi will be proud of you. You've struck a blow for the white man." Is that what you said, Clinton? Hm? Is that what you said? It must've been you... because Clayton Townley and Ray Stuckey, they were too smart to be there. And you was too stupid to think anybody'd remember what you had to say. But old Lester, he got a good memory.
[Anderson groans as he accidentally cuts Clinton with the razor blade]
Anderson: I'm sorry. I haven't done this for a long time. Did you make a speech the night that you beat up your wife, Clinton? Huh? Did ya? Did you strike a blow for the white man that night? Huh?
[Anderson lifts Clinton out of his barber chair and thrusts his face towards a mirror]
Anderson: You got a stupid smile. You know that, Pell?
[Anderson pushes Clinton's face right up against the mirror]
Anderson: Can you see it? Huh? Good!
[Anderson pulls Pell away from the mirror and throws him up against a wall]
Anderson: Did you smile when the bulldozer ran over the black kid's body? Did ya?
[Anderson pulls Clinton away from the wall and walks him towards a sink filled with water. Anderson then pushes Clinton's face into the water then quickly pulls him back out]
Anderson: Did you smile when the bodies were covered over? Did ya?
[Anderson throws Clinton towards a wall. Clinton hits the wall and falls to the ground]
Anderson: Get up here.
[Anderson pulls Clinton up off the ground]
Anderson: Come on. Get up! Did you smile that same stupid smile, huh?
[Anderson smacks Clinton in the face]
Anderson: Did ya? You...
[Anderson throws Clinton towards a line of chairs, knocking them over and landing on the ground]
Anderson: You... Did ya smile, Pell? Did ya smile? Huh? Did ya?
[Anderson pushes Clinton onto a barber chair and holds the razor blade to his face]
Anderson: Make no mistake about it, Deputy. I'll cut your fuckin' head off and not give a shit how it reads in the report sheet.
[Anderson walks away, leaving Clinton lying dazed and beaten in the spinning barber chair]

Deputy: It's a goddamn political meeting, hoover boy.
Ward: Oh, it looks like a political meeting but it smells more like Klan to me, with or without the Halloween costumes.

Frank: [sniffs Goatee] Hell! You even startin' to smell like a nigger, Jew boy.
Goatee: [to his passengers] Don't worry. We'll be all right.
Frank: Sure you will, nigger lover.
Floyd: He seen your face. That's not good him seein' your face.
Frank: Oh. It don't make no difference no more.
[kills Goatee]

Ward: Where does it come from? All this hatred?
Anderson: You know, when I was a little boy, there was an old negro farmer that lived down the road from us, name of Monroe. And he was... well, I guess he was just a little luckier than my daddy was. He bought himself a mule. That was a big deal around that town. My daddy hated that mule, 'cause his friends were always kidding him that they saw Monroe out plowing with his new mule, and Monroe was going to rent another field now he had a mule. One morning, that mule showed up dead. They poisoned the water. After that, there wasn't any mention about that mule around my daddy. It just never came up. One time, we were driving down that road, and we passed Monroe's place and we saw it was empty. He just packed up and left, I guess, he must of went up north or something. I looked over at my daddy's face. I knew he done it. He saw that I knew. He was ashamed. I guess he was ashamed. He looked at me and said, If you ain't better than a nigger, son, who are you better than?
Ward: You think that's an excuse?
Anderson: No it's not an excuse. It's just a story about my daddy.
Ward: Where's that leave you?
Anderson: My old man was just so full of hate that he didn't know that bein' poor was what was killing him.

[Agent Monk has kidnapped the mayor]
Agent: You. I'm gonna tell you a story. A kid named Homer Wilkes lives 30 miles north of here. He'd just taken his girlfriend home and was walking along the road. A truck pulls up beside him. Four white boys took him for a ride. Now Homer, he headn't done anything, except be a Negro. They took him to a shack, a regular old shack like this one. Then they took out a razor blade.
[shows him a razor blade]
Agent: Ragged old razor blade, like this one. They pulled down his pants, they spread his legs, and they sliced off his scrotum.
[shows him a coffee cup]
Agent: Then they put it in a coffee cup, like this one. Mayor, do you know how much you bleed when someone cuts off your balls?
[throws the cup at him]
Agent: HUH! When they found Homer, he looked like he head been dipped in blood up to his waist. He was barely alive when they got him to the hospital, and he can barely walk now.

Deputy: Funny, their kids are so cute.

[the FBI saved Lester Cowans from a lynching]
Anderson: You're lucky we've been watching your ass, Lester.
Ward: If you go on the record, Mr. Cowans, we'll give you protection. If not...
Anderson: If not, they're going to kill you anyway.
[sniffs]
Anderson: Oooh Lester, you need a toilet.

Television: Your name, please.
Clayton: Clayton Townley, local businessman.
Television: Are you, sir, a spokesman for the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan?
Clayton: I told you, I'm a businessman. I'm also a Mississippian, and an American! And I'm getting SICK and TIRED of the way us Mississippians are getting our views distorted by you newsmen and on the TV. So let's get this straight. We do NOT accept Jews, because they REJECT Christ! And their control over the International Banking Cartels are at the root of what we call Communism today. We do not accept Papists, because they bow to a Roman dictator! We do not accept Turks, Mongrels, Tartars, Orientals nor Negroes because we are here to protect Anglo-Saxon Democracy, and the American way!
Television: Thank you very much.

Mrs. Pell: It's not good for you to be here.
Agent: Why?
Mrs. Pell: It's ugly. This whole thing is so ugly. Have you any idea 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 what's said in the Bible... Genesis 9, Verse 27. At 7 years of age, you get told it enough times, you believe it. You believe the hatred. You live it... you breathe it. You marry it.

[first lines]
Driver: Uh, oh.
Passenger: What is it?
Passenger: [seeing the car behind them] What do they want?
Driver: I don't know... just pass me... pass me...
Driver: [trying to identify the following car] Is it a cop?
Passenger: I can't see.
[they are hit from behind]
Driver: What the fuck are these jokers playin' at?
Rear: Oh, they ain't playin', you better believe it.
[they are hit again]
Passenger: What're we gonna do?
Driver: I don't know... OK, hold on, you guys.
[he veers to a side road]
Passenger: There's a truck, too.
[the car behind them turns on its roof light]
Driver: Shit, it *is* a cop.
Passenger: Better stop.
Driver: OK, sit tight, you guys. Don't say anything; let me talk... All right? We'll be all right; just relax.

Mayor: You know what, Anderson? You're starting to get so far up my nose, I'm beginning to feel your boots on my chin!

Anderson: What's got 4 eyes/I's and cant see?
Ward: What?
Anderson: Mississippi

Mayor: [talking to a reporter] If the entire Secret Service couldn't protect the President of the United States, how the HELL are *we* supposed to protect a few negroes! It is nothing more than some poor white trash drinking too much cheap alcohol. More likely paint thinner and snake juice because this state's as dry as a martini, and we've got the alcoholics to prove it.

Ward: What's wrong with these people?

Anderson: Don't you have the whole world to save?

Clayton: In the courts of Mississippi, they have been reminded, that they cannot, by force, turn our communities into replicas of their communities... communities in which negroes run riot, unrestrained and unpunished, as they do this summer in the streets of Harlem, or they do in the streets of Oakland, or they do in the STREETS OF CHICAGO!

Clayton: Alright, I just want to know one thing. Who the hell called this meeting?
Sheriff: We thought you did.
Lester: You mean you didn't set this up?
Clayton: Of this group? Are you stupid?

Mrs. Pell: If you're ever in Des Moines, don't send me a postcard.

[Anderson and Ward leave the house after talking with Deputy Clinton Pell and Mrs. Pell]
Ward: Tell me, Mr Anderson. How does a woman like that end up with...
Anderson: [nods toward the Pell house] With shithead in there? You know what these small towns are like. A girl spends all her time in high school lookin' for the guy she's gonna marry, and spends the rest of her life wonderin' why.
Ward: Something's wrong. He's too confident.
Anderson: Did you see the wedding photograph? His three pals, the ushers, had their thumbs hooked in their belts, with their three fingers pointing down.
Ward: So what is that? Some sort of Masonic thing?
Anderson: [holds up three fingers] No! "K-K-K."

Anderson: Don't mean shit to have a gun unless you ready to use it.

Anderson: Down here they say rattlesnakes don't commit suicide.

[last lines]
Agent: You wanna drive, Rupert?
Agent: Yeah.

Frank: [after kicking Aaron to the ground] You've already been told once, nigger! And we're not gonna tell you again. If you go making any more trouble by squawking them boot lips off to any of those Federal men, then we sure as hell are gonna have to put you in the ground, boy. And that's without a pine box. Do you understand ME!
[kicks him again]

Deputy: You got no right to be here. This is a political meeting.
Ward: Doesn't smell that way to me, Deputy.
Deputy: It's a damn political meeting, Hoover Boy.
Ward: Oh, it looks like a political meeting, but smells more like Klan to me... with or without the Halloween costumes.

Anderson: [after the altercation with Ward where Ward pulled his gun on Anderson] Do you think he would have shot me?
Agent: Oh, yes sir.
Anderson: Ballsy little bastard, isn't he?

Ward: Good morning. My name is Alan Ward. I'm with the FBI.
Deputy: Federal Bureau of Integration?
[laughs]
Deputy: That getup you ain't exactly undercover, are you now?
Ward: We're here to see Sheriff Stuckey.
Deputy: Sheriff's right busy now. You'll have to wait or come back some other time.
Ward: [Smiling] We'll wait.
Anderson: [Approaches Deputy Pell] Listen to me you backwoods shitass you. You got about two seconds to get the Sheriff out here or I'm gonna kick the God damn door in. OK?
[Smiles]

[about the black passenger]
Lester: I didn't kill him, I only shot him in the ass.
Anderson: We know that. He was already dead when you put your slug in him. But your buddy sees it differently. He says it like YOU killed the kid. Now either you go on the record with us right now, or it'll be YOUR ass we're talking about, not just the black kid's!

[Ward stops Anderson from taking vigilante action against Pell]
Ward: We'll go after all of them. Together.
Anderson: You wouldn't know how!
Ward: You're going to *teach me* how.
Anderson: You don't have the GUTS!
Ward: Not only do I HAVE the guts I have the AUTHORITY!