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Acknowledgments
- University of Georgia Press
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Acknowledgments When I informed Michael Cass that the combination of my duties as chair of the History Department at the University of Georgia and my responsibilities as president of the Southern Historical Association required me to withdraw from the special millennium session of the Dolly Blount Lamar Lectures in October 2000, I feared that my name would be summarily stricken from the esteemed roster of potential future speakers. For once in a very long while, however, my fears went unrealized, and for that I will always be grateful to the Lamar Lectures Committee. I want to thank Dr. Tony Badger of Cambridge University, Dr. David Garrow of Emory University, and Dr. Robert Haws of the University of Mississippi for sharing their thoughts and suggestions with me as I prepared the lectures. I am especially indebted to Sarah Gardner, who served as our principal host and made our stay in Macon and time at Mercer a supremely pleasant experience. I am also very appreciative of the students who turned out for my talks in truly impressive numbers and gave no sign of having been physically or emotionally coerced to do so. My conversations with Mercer students after the lectures, in classes, and on campus were the high points of my visit. Alumni and friends of Mercer University have good reason to be extremely proud, both of the type of young person their school is attracting and of the job its faculty is doing in developing the students’ minds and character. I made many new friends at Mercer, but I also saw some old ones there as well. My former teachers, colleagues, and longtime friends Will Holmes and Lester Stephens were kind enough to put in an appearance, and my friend and fellow UGA alumnus Glenn Eskew also showed up, accompanied by my mentor and soul mate, Bud ix Bartley, whose sudden death a few months later left a hole in my heart that will never heal. My own former students Craig Pascoe and Stephen Taylor turned out to see if the old man could still cut the mustard, or at least spread it around. No sight warmed my heart during the lectures more than the faces of Cheri Griggs, Nancy and Scott Hardigree, Mary and Allen Jackson, Jean and Billy Kidd, and Joanne Ridgway, all from my hometown of Hartwell, Georgia. Greater love hath no one than he or she who makes a six-hour round-trip to hear me talk, unless it is the love that I feel for them, not only for trekking to Macon but for all the other wonderfully generous and supportive things they have done for us since Lyra and I returned to Hart County in 1997. In a wholly inadequate effort to demonstrate how much these folks mean to us, I am dedicating this book to our dear friends from Hartwell. x Acknowledgments [3.227.251.194] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 16:44 GMT) The Brown Decision, Jim Crow, and Southern Identity This page intentionally left blank ...