Morgan Freeman(Morgan Porterfield Freeman, Jr.born June 1, 1937 an American actor, film director, and narrator) says Mississippi is "starving" for the right leadership, so the actor is using his celebrity status to help his friend run for governor in 2011. Freeman received Academy Award nominations for his performances in Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, and The Shawshank Redemption before winning in 2005 for Million Dollar Baby. He has also won a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award. Freeman has appeared in many other box office hits, including Unforgiven, Seven, Deep Impact, The Sum of All Fears, Bruce Almighty, Batman Begins, The Bucket List, Evan Almighty, Wanted, and The Dark Knight.
Morgan Freeman has written a fundraising letter and is one of the hosts for a cocktail party in Los Angeles next week for Bill Luckett, an attorney seeking the Democratic nomination. Term limits prevent Republican Gov. Haley Barbour from seeking a third term.
"Reform in Mississippi is hard because the base stock of this state is a mule-headed bunch of farmers," Morgan Freeman told The Associated Press on Sunday. "Those farmers have ruled the roost for so long because this is an agricultural state."
Morgan Freeman said in the fundraising letter that Luckett, who co-owns the Ground Zero Blues Club and the upscale Madidi restaurant with the actor, will help the state improve education, health care and economic development.
Morgan Freeman lives in Charleston, a small town in the Mississippi Delta where farming is the main economic engine. The area has been plagued by poverty, illiteracy and racial tensions.
"Holding on to the old politics of race, class and region has starved Mississippi for too long," Morgan Freeman wrote in the letter released to AP. "... Bill Luckett will work diligently to see that the rhetoric that has divided us will never again keep us from tackling such problems."
Morgan Freeman spotlighted the race issues in "Prom Night in Mississippi," a documentary that aired on HBO about the first integrated senior prom at Charleston High School in 2008.
Next up for Morgan Freeman is a role as Nelson Mandela in the post-apartheid drama "Invictus." The film opens Dec. 11.
Mississippi Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant and businessman Dave Dennis, a former member of the Federal Reserve Board in New Orleans, have said they'll seek the Republican nomination for governor. No other prominent Democrats have publicly said they'll run.
