The Price of Defiance: James Meredith and the Integration of Ole Miss

Essay on Sources

Essay on Sources The story of Ole Miss, race, and James Meredith rests on wide and deep research in a variety of sources. A full bibliography would involve a cumbersome recitation of information contained in the notes and would not di√erentiate adequately among the many sources. Instead of a lengthy list, the following discussion highlights the major, unusual, and crucial sources in several broad categories: archival materials and manuscripts, newspapers, books, and oral histories. The Archives and Special Collections at the University of Mississippi library contains several important manuscript collections. No earlier researcher had access to the extensive files of the J. D. Williams administration, previously stored unprocessed in various places at the university but now residing in the University Archives along with the smaller collection of Williams’s personal papers. Cited as the University Files, the administration’s papers contain newspaper clippings, university-generated documents, internal communications, and correspondence with alumni, political leaders, and others. Special Collections houses the voluminous personal papers of James Meredith that he gave to the university in 1997. Though they are far more extensive in covering his later life, the papers also provide indispensable documentation of Meredith’s experiences up to and through 1963. Among many other holdings, Special Collections includes the important papers of two university professors, James W. Silver and Russell H. Barrett. Also at the university are the helpful files in the College of Liberal Arts. Other useful collections include the Will Campbell and Paul B. Johnson papers at the University of Southern Mississippi, the Walter Sillers papers at Delta State University, and the university presidents’ papers and the Hodding Carter papers at Mississippi State University. Especially significant in the Carter papers are the added files of James Robertshaw, Carter’s lawyer in the lawsuit brought by Edwin Walker. Requested for the first time under the Freedom of Information Act, two major federal sources became available, but only after years of waiting. The FBI files on ‘‘the integration of the University of Mississippi by James Meredith’’ fill three file drawers. Though redactions for privacy sometimes limit their value, they contain hundreds of internal memos and reports, transcripts from scores of interviews, thousands of labeled newspaper clippings, and copies of many other relevant documents, such as court decisions. Filling another file drawer, the U.S. Marshals Service files provide extensive coverage of the marshals’ involvement in 1962–63, especially their frequent reports on Meredith’s activities and on-campus events. FOIA requests also obtained myriad documents from other parts of the Department of Justice and the U.S. Army. In Record Group 319 at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland, the documentary collection compiled by Paul J. Scheips for his Center for 544 e s say o n s o u r c e s Military History account of the army’s involvement in Oxford contains the army’s logs of events at the university, in addition to many other documents from scattered sources. The National Archives Southeast Region in Atlanta, Georgia, holds the Meredith v. Fair case file, the files for other federal cases arising from Mississippi, and the files of the U.S. Marshals Service, Northern District of Mississippi, Oxford Division. Among the many resources at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, the papers of Burke Marshall were the most important. More than one collection or record group often contains copies of the same document; the materials in RG 527, however, contain no deletions. In Jackson, Mississippi, the state’s Department of Archives and History has digitized the incomparable but incomplete files of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. The archives also have transcripts of dozens of oral histories and many videos, including news film. The State Records Center holds the confidential files of the General Legislative Investigating Committee, but a director of its successor, the Performance Evaluation of Expenditure Review Committee, allowed access to the relevant records. The papers of the Institutions of Higher Learning at the Records Center were a disappointment because nearly all that related to Meredith were routinely destroyed in the 1980s. No records from the administration of Ross Barnett apparently survive. At the national o≈ce in Washington, the papers of the American Association of University Professors yielded vital information on a range of controversies at the University of Mississippi. The files of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in Decatur, Georgia, also contain pertinent materials, especially for background. The papers of the Association of American Law Schools, archived at the...