INTEGRATION AT OLE MISS

by Russell H. Barrett ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

This author is a professor of political science at the University of Mississippi and a leader of the campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors. He was a close-range spectator and frequently an active participant in the events of 1962 in Oxford, and has written from memory and from his own notes as well as quoting extensively from trial records and local newspapers. He describes the day-by-day legal footwork of the case, the buildup of tension, the shortsightedness of the native political establishment. He tells of James Meredith's own actions and attitudes, and the reactions of other students to the events around them. He is retrospectively critical of many persons involved in the case -- including himself for certain lapses of action -- but his main purpose is to indicate the real roots of the tragedy of the Ole Miss riot. He also gives in some detail the stories of other Negroes before and after Meredith who chipped away at the Ole Miss color bar. The civil rights movement can benefit from Barrett's carefully modulated analysis of the causes, events, and aftermath of James Meredith's interaction with Ole Miss, and certainly the people and the State of Mississippi can benefit, also, if Barrett's book reaches them.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Quadrangle

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1965

Categories: NONFICTION