Sons of Mississippi

Last updated
Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy
Sons of Mississippi.jpg
Author Paul Hendrickson
GenreNonfiction
Published2003
Awards Heartland Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award
ISBN 0-375-40461-9
OCLC 491986428
305.8/009762/09045 21
LC Class F350.A1 H46 2003

Sons of Mississippi is a book by Paul Hendrickson about sheriffs in Mississippi. The book's starting point is a photograph by Charles Moore of seven sheriffs assembled in Oxford, Mississippi.

The photo was taken three days before James Meredith would enroll at University of Mississippi as its first African-American student; the sheriffs had come from different places in Mississippi to protest the enrollment. [1] It was published in Life magazine in 1962 and headlined "Local Lawmen, Getting Ready to Block the Law". [2]

Most of the sheriffs assembled had left Oxford by the time violence broke out on September 29–30.[ citation needed ] However, to Hendrickson, they represent an important cross-section of the forces of segregation. [1]

Hendrickson spent seven years researching the book, with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He interviewed the two sheriffs who were still alive, as well as children, grandchildren, friends, enemies, and associates. Hendrickson also spoke to James Meredith and his son, Joseph Meredith. [2]

The book pays special attention to the Ferrell family, headed by Sheriff Billy T. Ferrell, who is situated in the center of the Moore photograph and is swinging a billy club. [1]

The Moore photograph depicts seven sheriffs, who in the photo, are situated from left to right as follows: [3]

The Moore photograph also shows the back of a state trooper's head, close to the camera on the left, and it appears blurry and large. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Meredith</span> American civil rights movement figure (born 1933)

James Howard Meredith is an American civil rights activist, writer, political adviser, and United States Air Force veteran who became, in 1962, the first African-American student admitted to the racially segregated University of Mississippi after the intervention of the federal government. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, Meredith decided to exercise his constitutional rights and apply to the University of Mississippi. His goal was to put pressure on the Kennedy administration to enforce civil rights for African Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billy the Kid</span> American outlaw and gunfighter (1859–1881)

Henry McCarty, alias William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, was an American outlaw and gunfighter of the Old West who is alleged to have killed 21 men before he was shot and killed at the age of 21. He is also known for his involvement in New Mexico's Lincoln County War, during which he allegedly committed three murders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Photographers of the American Civil War</span>

The American Civil War was the most widely covered conflict of the 19th century. The images would provide posterity with a comprehensive visual record of the war and its leading figures, and make a powerful impression on the populace. Something not generally known by the public is the fact that roughly 70% of the war's documentary photography was captured by the twin lenses of a stereo camera. The American Civil War was the first war in history whose intimate reality would be brought home to the public, not only in newspaper depictions, album cards and cartes-de-visite, but in a popular new 3D format called a "stereograph," "stereocard" or "stereoview." Millions of these cards were produced and purchased by a public eager to experience the nature of warfare in a whole new way.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pat Garrett</span> American lawman (1850–1908)

Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett was an American Old West lawman, bartender and customs agent known for killing Billy the Kid. He was the sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico, as well as Doña Ana County, New Mexico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Castle Rock (Stephen King)</span> Part of Stephen King’s fictional Maine

Castle Rock is a fictional town appearing in Stephen King's fictional Maine topography, providing the setting for a number of his novels, novellas, and short stories. Castle Rock first appeared in King's 1979 novel The Dead Zone and has since been referred to or used as the primary setting in many other works by King.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billy Meier</span> Swiss author and founder of a UFO religion

Eduard Albert Meier, commonly nicknamed "Billy", is the founder of a UFO religion called the "Freie Interessengemeinschaft für Grenz- und Geisteswissenschaften und Ufologiestudien" and alleged contactee whose UFO photographs are claimed to show alien spacecraft. Meier claims to be in regular contact with extraterrestrial beings he calls the Plejaren. He also presented other material during the 1970s such as metal samples, sound recordings and film footage. Meier claims to be the seventh reincarnation after six prophets common to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: Enoch, Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Immanuel (Jesus), and Muhammad.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner</span> 1964 murders of three activists in Mississippi, US

The murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, also known as the Freedom Summer murders, the Mississippi civil rights workers' murders, or the Mississippi Burning murders, refers to events in which three activists were abducted and murdered in the city of Philadelphia, Mississippi, in June 1964 during the Civil Rights Movement. The victims were James Chaney from Meridian, Mississippi, and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner from New York City. All three were associated with the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) and its member organization, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). They had been working with the Freedom Summer campaign by attempting to register African Americans in Mississippi to vote. Since 1890 and through the turn of the century, southern states had systematically disenfranchised most black voters by discrimination in voter registration and voting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brushy Bill Roberts</span> American man who claimed to be Billy the Kid

Brushy Bill Roberts also known as William Henry Roberts, Ollie Partridge William Roberts, Ollie N. Roberts, or Ollie L. Roberts, was an American man who attracted attention in the late 1940s and the 1950s by claiming to be Western outlaw William H. Bonney,. Roberts' claim was rejected by the governor of New Mexico, Thomas J. Mabry, in 1950. Brushy Bill's story is promoted by the "Billy the Kid Museum" in his hometown of Hico in Hamilton County, Texas. His claim was explored in a 2011 episode of Brad Meltzer's Decoded and a segment by Robert Stack in 1989 on Unsolved Mysteries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynching in the United States</span> Extrajudicial killings in the United States by mobs or vigilante groups

Lynching was the widespread occurrence of extrajudicial killings which began in the United States' pre–Civil War South in the 1830s and ended during the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Although the victims of lynchings were members of various ethnicities, after roughly 4 million enslaved African Americans were emancipated, they became the primary targets of white Southerners. Lynchings in the U.S. reached their height from the 1890s to the 1920s, and they primarily victimised ethnic minorities. Most of the lynchings occurred in the American South, as the majority of African Americans lived there, but racially motivated lynchings also occurred in the Midwest and border states.

Charles Lee Moore was an American photographer known for his photographs documenting the Civil Rights Movement. Probably his most famous photo is of Martin Luther King Jr.'s arrest for loitering on September 3, 1958. It is this photo that sparked Moore's involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billy Bowlegs III</span> Seminole elder

Billy Bowlegs III, Billy Fewell, aka Cofehapkee (1862–1965), was a Seminole elder, who was also of African-American descent. He was a tribal historian in Florida.

<i>The Left Handed Gun</i> 1958 film by Nik reby

The Left Handed Gun is a 1958 American Western film and the film directorial debut of Arthur Penn, starring Paul Newman as Billy the Kid and John Dehner as Pat Garrett.

Paul L. Guihard was a French-British journalist for Agence France-Press. He was murdered in the 1962 riot at the University of Mississippi while covering the events surrounding James Meredith's attempts to enroll at the all-white university. The only journalist known to have been killed in the Civil Rights Movement, his murder remains unsolved.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C. S. Fly</span> American photographer (1849–1901)

Camillus "Buck" Sydney Fly was an Old West photographer who is regarded by some as an early photojournalist and who captured the only known images of Native Americans while still at war with the United States. He took many other pictures of life in the silver-mining boom town of Tombstone, Arizona, and the surrounding region. He recognized the value of his photographs to illustrate periodicals of the day and took his camera to the scenes of important events where he recorded them and resold pictures to editors nationwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ole Miss riot of 1962</span> Civil unrest in Mississippi

The Ole Miss riot of 1962, also known as the Battle of Oxford, was a violent disturbance that occurred at the University of Mississippi—commonly called Ole Miss—in Oxford, Mississippi. Segregationist rioters sought to prevent the enrollment of African American veteran James Meredith, and President John F. Kennedy was forced to quell the riot by mobilizing over 30,000 troops, the most for a single disturbance in American history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Raymond Jr.</span> American artist

George Raymond Jr. was an African-American civil rights activist, a member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a Freedom Rider, and head of the Congress of Racial Equality in Mississippi in the 1960s. Raymond influenced many of Mississippi's most known activists, such as Anne Moody, C. O. Chinn, and Annie Devine to join the movement and was influential in many of Mississippi's most notable Civil Rights activities such as a Woolworth's lunchcounter sit-in and protests in Jackson, Mississippi, Meredith Mississippi March, and Freedom Summer. Raymond fought for voting rights and equality for African Americans within society amongst other things.

James Wesley Silver was a history professor and author. He wrote Mississippi: The Closed Society. He was a professor at the University of Mississippi, then University of Notre Dame, and finally at the University of South Florida. He was targeted for firing despite his tenure at Ole Miss because of his support for civil rights.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Hendrickson</span> American author, journalist, and professor

Paul Hendrickson is an American author, journalist, and professor. He is a senior lecturer and member of the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a former member of the writing staff at the Washington Post.

John Barry Pierpoint Cole was an English fashion and advertising photographer.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Wen Stephenson, "Rising Sons: A review of Paul Hendrickson's Sons of Mississippi Archived 2014-10-21 at the Wayback Machine "; Washington Monthly, April 2003.
  2. 1 2 Elizabeth Bennett, "'Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy,' by Paul Hendrickson; Photo is a window into roots of racism, change in the South"; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 13 April 2003.
  3. Sons of Mississippi, p. 18.
  4. Sons of Mississippi, p. 136.