Spies of Mississippi: The True Story of the Spy Network That Tried to Destroy the Civil Rights Movement (review)

That staunch segregationists launched a desperate push-back following the 1954 Brown v. Board decision is certainly common knowledge to young readers with passing familiarity with civil rights history. Less discussed in children's literature, however, is the astonishing degree of organization behind segregationist maneuvering. Here Bowers introduces the rise, operation, and eventual abolition of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, formed in 1956 under Governor J. P. Coleman, which covertly investigated pro-integration "agitators" and attempted, often successfully, to thwart their activities. With a public-relations drive to portray race relations in the segregated South as calm and harmonious and a system of informants (both white and African American) infiltrating civil rights groups and feeding information through a "pipeline" to the State House, the MSSC functioned as an efficient machine; after the election of an even more hostile governor, Ross Barnett, it even funneled public tax money into the effort. Bowers describes power plays large and small, from the framing of Clyde Kennard, an African American who attempted to enroll at Mississippi Southern College, through the opposition to James Meredith's groundbreaking entry into the University of Mississippi, and to Medgar Evers' assassination, and he traces MSSC involvement therein. Short, clearly focused chapters and a true-crime tone make the work accessible and gripping. Deep end matter comprising an index, document reproductions, quotation sources, and bibliography is appended. This is the kind of eye-opening material that will send serious students scurrying for more information; it should be an essential purchase for the civil rights collection.