Here’s a concise summary of the film Free State of Jones :

is a historical war drama directed by Gary Ross, starring Matthew McConaughey as Newton Knight. Set during and after the American Civil War, the film tells the true story of Knight, a poor Mississippi farmer who leads an armed rebellion against the Confederacy. Disillusioned by a “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight,” Knight deserts the Confederate army and, alongside other deserters and enslaved people, establishes a free, multiracial settlement in the swamps of Jones County. They declare it the “Free State of Jones.” The film also follows the post-war struggle for Reconstruction, racial equality, and the eventual rise of Jim Crow laws, intercut with Knight’s great-grandson’s 1948 trial for violating Mississippi’s anti-miscegenation laws.