James Meredith and the Ole Miss Riot: A Soldier's Story (Presentation copy)

Gallagher, Henry T.

ISBN 10: 1617036536 / ISBN 13: 9781617036538

Published by University Press of Mississippi, 2012

About this Item

Stated first printing. Fine in fine unclipped dust jacket with a presentation from the author to Nick Hayes on the front endpaper: "To Nick Hayes - After you read it, give it to your son to read and then, years later, he can give it to his son to read. All so, lest we forget. Henry T. Gallagher August 22, 2012". With an additional typed note signed "Nick, Once I read over the index I was surprised at the many references I had made to my home town of Minneapolis (11 times) and Minnesota (23 times). Might this be something that MPR would be interete din doin in terms of an author interview? This coming week I'm doing one with North Carolina Public Radion ('The Story'). See you at homecoming" From the book jacket: "James Meredith and the Ole Miss Riot" is both an invaluable perspective on a pivotal moment in American history and an in-depth look at a unique home-front military action." The author attended one of history's most profound tests, a soldier from the Midwest in the powder keg of the deadly civil rights confrontation when, in 1962, James Meredith became the first African American to be admitted to 'Ole Miss'.(University of Mississippi). Nick is a popular commentator regularly featured on Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), the daily public affairs program Midday, on issues ranging from political turmoil in post-communist Europe to the war in Iraq. Nick Hayes currently holds the University Chair in Critical Thinking at Saint John?s University.

Seller Inventory # 327862

Bibliographic Details

• Title: James Meredith and the Ole Miss Riot: A Soldier's Story (Presentation copy)
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1617036536
• ISBN 13: 9781617036538
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First edition.
• Condition: Like New
• Dust Jacket Condition: Like New Dust Jacket
• Weight: 24 ounces
• Signed: Signed by Author
• Seller catalogs:
  • History U.S.

About this title

Synopsis

In September 1962, James Meredith became the first African American admitted to the University of Mississippi. A milestone in the civil rights movement, his admission triggered a riot spurred by a mob of three thousand whites from across the South and all but officially stoked by the state's segregationist authorities. Historians have called the Oxford riot nothing less than an insurrection and the worst constitutional crisis since the Civil War. The escalating conflict prompted President John F. Kennedy to send twenty thousand regular army troops, in addition to federalized Mississippi National Guard soldiers, into the civil unrest (ten thousand into the town itself) to quell rioters and restore law and order.

James Meredith and the Ole Miss Riot is the memoir of one of the participants, a young army second lieutenant named Henry Gallagher, born and raised in Minnesota. His military police battalion from New Jersey deployed, without the benefit of riot-control practice or advance briefing, into a deadly civil rights confrontation. He was thereafter assigned as the officer-in-charge of Meredith's security detail at a time when he faced very real threats to his life.

Gallagher's first-person account considers the performance of his fellow soldiers before and after the riot. He writes of the behavior of the white students, some of them defiant, others perceiving a Communist-inspired Kennedy conspiracy in Meredith's entry into Mississippi's “flagship” university. The author depicts the student, Meredith, a man who at times seemed disconnected with the violent reality that swirled around him, and who even aspired to be freed of his protectors so that he could just be another Ole Miss student.

James Meredith and the Ole Miss Riot is both an invaluable perspective on a pivotal moment in American history and an in-depth look at a unique home front military action. From the vantage of the fiftieth anniversary of the riot, Henry T. Gallagher reveals the young man he was in the midst of one of history's most profound tests, a soldier from the Midwest encountering the powder keg of the Old South and its violent racial divisions.

About the Author

Henry T. Gallagher was formerly an attorney in Washington, DC.