We Believed We Were Immortal: Twelve Reporters Who Covered the 1962 Integration Crisis at Ole Miss

by Kathleen Wickham

On the 55th anniversary of the 1962 crisis at Ole Miss, Kathleen Wickham traces the footsteps of twelve American journalists and explores the unsolved murder of Paul Guihard, a French reporter killed during the ensuing riot. When James Meredith sought to become the first African-American to enroll at the University of Mississippi, more than 300 reporters descended on the small town of Oxford only to face threats and beatings, snipers on rooftops, and a retired army general calling for a volunteer army to save the university. Bob Schieffer observes, Wickham gives well-deserved credit to twelve men and women who risked their lives to tell the story. TV cameraman Gordon Yoder and his wife Irene were attacked by protestors, and Fred Powledge of the Atlanta Journal bore witness. Karl Fleming of Newsweek and Life freelance-photographer Flip Schulke braved tear gas and snipers to obtain interviews and photos. Sidna Brower, student editor of The Mississippian, called for calm. State troopers turned Moses Newson of the Baltimore Afro-American away from the campus. Newsday s Michael Dorman sought to define the mood of the state through the writings of William Faulkner. Dorothy Gilliam of The Washington Post interviewed African-Americans living in Oxford. Neal Gregory of The Commercial Appeal sought out local ministers for insight and perspective. NBC s Richard Valeriani and CBS Dan Rather utilized the raw power of broadcast news; and Claude Sitton of the The New York Times rented a plane to cover news in the state capitol and the battle looming in Oxford.

Genres: Nonfiction

246 pages, Hardcover

Published September 30, 2017

Reviews

[Susie James]

I found an oldie at the Carrollton, Miss., library last week, which asked me to read it -- "We Believed We Were Immortal: Twelve Reporters Who Covered the 1962 Integration Crisis at Ole Miss" by Kathleen Wickham -- she I guess is still associated with the journalism school at Ole Miss these days. Published in 2017 as a commemoration of the Sept. 30, 1962 riots involving the U. S. Marshals, the troopers, county and city law enforcement folks of Lafayette County, the Kennedys, and all sorts of fired up yokels, the book wasn't noticed by yours truly for quite some time, as early 2017 I was in the beginning throes of premature death down at the Baptist Hospital in Jackson; I had been an employee of the Oxford Eagle right out of MSCW, the women's college at Columbus (now MUW) and the effects of that blown up year were still to be felt. That year, led by the death of the famous son, William Faulkner, and the infighting over the attempts by James Meredith, a black man and Air Force veteran, to enter Ole Miss, I was far away from those times, down in rural Carroll County. I came to Oxford in the first part of 1970, and some years later managed to go to work for the Delta Democrat-Times in Greenville, whose former editor and political light is thumbnailed in this book, Hodding Carter, Jr., and III.

[Kathleen]

Author Kathleen Wickham describes the courage of the journalists covering integration at the University of Mississippi 55 years ago and includes excerpts from the articles they submitted. The campus exploded in chaos as students and outside agitators tried to thwart federal law allowing James Meredith to enroll on October 1, 1962. While telling the reporters' and photographers' stories, Dr. Wickham reveals the complicity of the local police and politicians in allowing, and even instigating, the violence on campus.