Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy($16.12Value)

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Sons of Mississippi recounts the story of seven white Mississippi lawmen depicted in a horrifically telling 1962 Life magazine photograph—and of the racial intolerance that is their legacy. In that photograph, which appears on the front of this jacket, the lawmen (six sheriffs and a deputy sheriff) admire a billy club with obvious pleasure, preparing for the unrest they anticipate—and to which they clearly intend to contribute—in the wake of James Meredith’s planned attempt to integrate the University of Mississippi. In finding the stories of these men, Paul Hendrickson gives us an extraordinarily revealing picture of racism in America at that moment. But his ultimate focus is on the part this legacy has played in the lives of their children and grandchildren. One of them is a grandson—a high school dropout and many times married—who achieves an elegant poignancy in his struggle against the racism to which he sometimes succumbs. One son is a sheriff, as his father was—and in the same town. Another grandson patrols the U.S. border with Mexico—a law enforcement officer like the two generations before him—driven by the beliefs and deeds of his forebears. In all the portraits, we see how the prejudice bequeathed by the fathers has been transformed, or remained untouched, in the sons. For its sense of fragile hope, Sons of Mississippi i s a profoundly important, revelatory work of still-evolving history. A stunning book by a masterful writer. To help us understand racism in America, former Washington Post journalist Hendrickson tells the story of the seven white Mississippi sheriffs shown admiring a billy club in a famed 1962 photograph. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. The author was on the staff of the Washington Post for 23 years, and his journalistic experience stood him in good stead in preparing this fascinating, creative, and deeply resonant look at the civil rights struggle in the U.S. from the perspective of white opposition. Hendrickson uses as his metaphor, as his jumping-off point, a photograph that appeared in Life magazine in 1962, in which seven white sheriffs, standing in a frightening group, are preparing for the violence anticipated on the morrow, when James Meredith would integrate the University of Mississippi. Certainly, these men did not congregate there out of support for racial integration. The photograph struck Hendrickson, when he found it, as an indelible image of the racism of the times. He looked the men up and talked to them, their sons, and a grandson to learn whether the racism the seven sheriffs represented had been carried, like a gene, to their descendants. In his words, "Where did the hatred and the sorrow go that flowed out of the moment?" Brad Hooper Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "Intelligence, subtlety, and the nuances of history glitter on every page of this elegant and moving book. Hendrickson isolates one minute in time and, like a sculptor approaching a granite block, he chips and chisels at it until he reveals the human forms, the human truths — hatred and bitterness, misgiving and courage, cruelty and generosity -- packed in a tangled embrace within it." —Melissa Fay Greene “Beautifully written, meticulously reported, Sons of Mississippi is a remarkable book. The story of the victims of racism in this country has been told and should keep being told. But we desperately need this portrait of the oppressors, and the legacy they bequeathed. This is not only an invaluable book on vital aspects of the civil rights struggle, but a lasting work of modern American history.” —Gay Talese “Paul Hendrickson goes deep below the surface of race relations in Mississippi to make an old story terribly and movingly new. The patented Hendrickson style, unique in American journalism, has never been deployed to better effect.” —Jack Miles “Paul Hendrickson in Sons of Mississippi knows that the South is about irony, and he captures it and its people with beautiful storytelling.” —Rick Bragg “Paul Hendrickson's wonderful, richly textured book is a compelling reminder of how the civil rights movement changed, and did not change, the world of white and black sons and daughters of Mississippi. It holds out the hope that someday social justice will come but reminds us of how hard it is to overcome the burden of race in our society.” --Mary Frances Berry, Chairperson, United States Commission on Civil Rights “Paul Hendrickson starts this book with the simplest of things, an old photo taken 40 years ago of some Mississippi sheriffs gathered to make their stand in one of the final battles of the Civil Rights movement–the integration of Ole Miss. Then he deftly opens up the photo, finding the men themselves, their children and their grandchildren. And in the process in this haunting, lyrical book, the past becomes the present and the present becomes the past.” --David Halberstam “Written with ethereal elegance, Sons of