Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63

by Taylor Branch

Meanwhile, Ross Barnett went to see the Ole Miss Rebels play the Kentucky Wildcats at Jackson’s Memorial Stadium. The war fever of the political crisis boosted the normal emotions of the football rite to the heights of pandemonium, and by halftime the crowd was shouting “We want Ross!” in a deafening roar. Barnett made his way to the fifty-yard line, where he raised a fist of defiance and cried out over the loudspeakers: “I love Mississippi!” The roar intensified, and Barnett, nearly overcome, rose above it to let loose another shout: “I love her people!” Then at the peak: “I love our customs!” These three short sentences were enough to ignite pre-battle ecstasy. People were ready to die. This was as close to, and yet as far from, the fervor of a Negro mass meeting as segregationists came. No one could know that this football game would be the last militant race rally among respectable whites for at least a generation.