The Fight over a Mississippi Textbook

Civil Rights, Culture Wars: The Fight over a Mississippi Textbook by Charles W. Eagles

I've just been made aware of this book, but I'm moving it up on my reading list because it's pretty important to me.  The history of the struggle for civil rights is, in many ways, my own history.  Born in 1963 in Jackson, Mississippi, to a very political family, this is the world I entered into just as the fight was getting more heated.  

For the past several months, I've been doing a really deep dive into the integration of Galloway United Methodist Church, and my plan is to do Millsaps next.  This book is about incidents that happened later on, more into the early and mid-seventies.

Mississippi Conflict and Change was a textbook about Mississippi history written by James W. Loewen, who taught at Tougaloo, and Charles Sallis, who taught at Millsaps.  It was the first Mississippi History textbook to include anything about the civil rights movement.  There's where the conflict and change about the book itself came in.

Mississippi has a free textbook law.  That means students of the public schools (and some parochial schools) are provided free textbooks paid for by the State of Mississippi.  In order to qualify for these funds, the books have to go through an approval and adoption process as set out in the law.  This is true for all the states that have a free textbook law, which I believe is all the states now.  

Approving textbooks can be very political.  With so many concerns about Critical Race Theory and anything about people with different sexualities, approving textbooks has become much more political than has been in many years.  In the seventies, there was considerable pressure to keep the civil rights movement out of any Mississippi History textbook.  Authors Lowen and Sallis, having struggled to get the book published in the first place, were determined to have it adopted by the state Textbook board, so they filed suit, accusing the board of rejecting their book illegally.

Eagle's Book "Civil Rights, Culture Wars: The Fight over a Mississippi Textbook," tells the story of the fight over getting "Conflict and Change" published.   

At St. Andrews, I was taught Mississippi History using Conflict and Change.  A very young priest named Jerry McBride taught it.  I didn't know it at the time, but St. Andrews was the only school in the nation that had ordered the book for classroom use.  I knew this because my father and grandfather ran the Mississippi State Textbook Depository.

My dad was asked to give a deposition in the case.  Considering the very political nature of his business, both at Missco and Trustmark and St Dominics, he really didn't want to get mixed up in this, but he also was pretty determined to get the book adopted.  Dr. Sallis was an important member of the Millsaps History Department.  Bill Goodman represented the State of Mississippi in this and many other matters.  He was also a life trustee of Millsaps College.  Mr. Goodman's advice was that the state not fight this, that fighting it would make us look pretty bad.  

At the time, there were political figures in Mississippi who had much to gain for taking a stance against a civil rights textbook.  Sadly, those days may have returned.  There was considerable political wrangling over this.  I don't know how much is in Eagle's book, but it involved a lot of icons of my youth.

Ultimately, cooler heads were able to prevail, and the book was adopted after considerable political and legal pressure.  I'm very interested to see how much of this lines up with my own memory of that period.  I was thirteen and fourteen.  Interestingly, the only reviewer of the book on Amazon is Bob King, former Dean at Millsaps College.

They have Mississippi Conflict and Change listed as almost $1,500 on Amazon.  I think I have two copies.  

Civil Rights, Culture Wars: The Fight over a Mississippi Textbook is available in hardcover, softcover, and kindle formats on Amazon.com I'll write a review once I've finished it.  

Moving Things - Moving Me

 Feist-dog got me up at five a.m.  The sun's still not out.  My little round ball Alexa alarm doesn't go off until six, so I don't know what his hurry is.

This week is preparation for the big move.  I meet the movers on Wednesday.  Some stuff I'm going to have to part with.  One is my dad's desk.  I've been using it as a desk for a while, but it was improperly stored after his death and got really badly warped.  It's also eight feet long.  As he was in the business of selling desks, I think Dad wanted something he could show off to people as an indication of what they might expect from us, plus I think our manufacturers had an expectation that he would showcase some of their more impressive wares.  

My dad liked everything modern.  Especially furniture and architecture.  He even grew his sideburns out for a while, and most of his lapels could double as a glider.  Being Mississippi's only Herman Miller dealer for a long time, most of his office set was Herman Miller, including the famous Eames Chair and Cricket Table.  

Since I still have mobility issues, I want to have safety rails installed in the bathroom.  I thought that'd be crazy expensive and complicated, but Lowes installs them for $85 each.  I already have an adjustable bed, so that's about all the accommodations I'll need.

I'm pretty relaxed about it now, but I'm sure as the time gets closer, I'll freak out.  Some of my theater friends have agreed to help hang my art.  That's probably the best I can do since they've done it to about a hundred of Brent's sets.  

There are two really important events at Millsaps this week.  The first is a presentation about Millsaps, Tougaloo, and the Civil Rights Movement Tuesday at 1:00 at the Christian Center.  Speakers include Jeanne Middleton, TW Lewis, and Ed King.  Like myself, Ed has been having a mystery element with his leg and may attend by Zoom.  All three of these people had a pretty important role in several levels of integrating Jackson, from the sit-ins to the integration of the churches and the ultimate integration of Millsaps and lastly the public schools.  I'm proud to say that Millsaps and Galloway led the way in these movements, and I'm ashamed to say we didn't do it before the mid-sixties.

We did this before in 2010 when Rob Pearigen was new at Millsaps.  The panel was then Jon Meacham, Governor William Winter, Jerry Mitchell, Jeanne Luckett, and Dr. Leslie McLemore.  There's a chance some of these will attend the lecture Tuesday.  Jerry Mitchell now has his offices at Millsaps, and Jeanne Luckett gets around to more stuff than I do.  Sadly, Governor Winter is no longer with us.  

This might be Rob's last event as president of Millsaps.  He and Phoebe attended Galloway yesterday.  Cary mentioned him in his sermon but assured us we'd see Rob again when he comes to visit Phoebe, who we have no intention of letting go.  That's not entirely wrong.  Losing Phoebe is gonna cost, Jackson.  She's been very involved in the years they've been here, and I think it's fitting that she'll be moving back to Sewanee after attending one last International Ballet Competition.

Later, at 5:00, we'll meet again at Fondren Guitars for the second session of the Millsaps Ted Lasso talks about effective management.  The presenter is LeAnne Brewer, who heads up our executive education effort.  LeAnne was a student when I was a much better student, apparently.  She has remarkable energy and insight, so I'm looking forward to this.  Where I'm headed, this little cluster of businesses will probably be where you can find me most nights.  They have whiskey next door.  That should do.

I think the operational plan for the next two weeks will be to mask my anxiety about moving with false enthusiasm.  That usually works.  I simply have to take the next step, though.  I've accomplished all I can here, and I'm worried that I'll regress if I stay.  I have to learn to maintain my diet and exercise on my own.  I've done both before.  I tend to slip into really bad habits (mostly fast food) when I don't maintain my mood, so going to have to watch that.

You'll notice changes to the blog.  I'm trying to make it look more professional since I'm trying to go out into the world as an actual writer, not just a guy who scribbles his thoughts.  

My wake-up alarm still hasn't gone off.  Probably the greatest thing I ever did for myself was when I learned to touch type.  Now I can type much, much faster than I can read, meaning I can do about a thousand words an hour.  Not too bad for a dyslexic kid.   It's also a pretty good indication of just how much my mind races when I'm alone and when I'm not alone.  The way my mind works has always been a real irritation to the women in my life, starting with my mother.  I'm pretty satisfied with it, but it can make it difficult to have a conversation with me sometimes.

Pride Month

 June is pride month.  I don't like the idea that we have to assign months where people can be proud of who they are.  That should be every month.  We started assigning months and holidays to marginalized groups around thirty years ago in an effort to recognize what the larger society had put them through in the past in hopes that remembering it would keep it from happening again.  It's not actually keeping it from happening again.  It's not.  I'm not very good at fighting this.  I've tried, but obviously, it's not enough.

La Cage aux Folles was a 1973 French film about two gay men who pretend to be straight for the sake of their son.  In 1983, Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Herman got the rights to turn it into a Broadway musical comedy.  Harvey Fierstein was the first American playwright to come out and live as an openly gay man.  You'd think that stage people would have led the way, but it didn't happen that way.  Fierstein wrote, directed, and starred in the first gay-themed play, first off and then on Broadway, Torch Song Trilogy.

Maybe one day, we'll get to the point where we don't have to have a pride month for this or a pride month for that.  I bought a pride sanctuary pin. It's simply a rainbow with the words "SAFE WITH ME" on it. I wear it because I've known people who didn't feel safe being what they were.  A couple of them read my stuff.  I've gotten nasty looks for wearing it.  That's ok.  I'd rather somebody hate me for accepting someone else than take it out on them.  If you're going to hate somebody for what they are, then hate me too.  Might as well.  Meanwhile, I'll go to drag shows and protests and all of these things because maybe me saying "I accept you" can help make up for the people who don't.

3 x 5 Pride Flag

Pink Salt

The sun's all the way up at 6:00 am.  You sure can tell it's summer.

Me and Feist-dog are heading to church.  I ordered some gourmet salt from Amazon last week, and they sent me an entire case.  When I inquired about what I should do with the extra six bottles, the Amazon lady said I should keep them no extra charge.  Hopefully, my sister will be at church.  I'm gonna try to unload one on her.  

Pink Salt Grinder - Amazon