Freeman still gets excited about the next project. When I suggest that it’s obviously not about the money, he laughs out loud and says, “Oh, yes, it is! I don’t kid myself. I’m spread out pretty thin. It’s an amazing thing about money. A lot of people are depending on it. If I stop right now, my Social Security and pension are life-providing, but there are a number of people whose lives would be jerked out from under them. But the real drive is the idea of still doing it.”

When Freeman started out, did he encounter any racism?

“Racism is a strange contemplation when you think about it. It’s easy to say, ‘Yeah, I didn’t do such and such because of my race.’ But to me, that is an easy out. There were not that many roles given to black actors, but then it seemed like the union realized they needed to press for more open casting—if the role doesn’t say black or white, it doesn’t have to be black or white. That happened in the late sixties, early seventies.

“A guy came to me after I moved here and wanted to start a business and borrow some money. I asked him, ‘Can you go to the bank?’ He said, ‘No, they aren’t going to lend any of us any money.’ I said, ‘What “us” are you talking about? Maybe you should go to the bank.’ So, yeah, it’s an easy out.”

And as for the country as a whole?

“I want to see us begin again. Let’s get out of these wars and come on back here. Take all the money we are spending elsewhere, trying to control other places, and start to rebuild the structure. Put money and prestige back into the schools. Start teaching kids in day care. Scientists tell us the earlier kids start to learn, the more capable they are of learning, and we are not taking advantage of that. We start there and we put ourselves back in the running. In ten years we can be on a whole new path in Mississippi.”