William F. Winter and the New Mississippi

William F. Winter and the New Mississippi
Author: Charles C. Bolton
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2013-07-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1617037877

The life story of the Mississippi governor known for his fight for education and racial reconciliation

The Measure of Our Days

The Measure of Our Days
Author: Andrew P. Mullins, Jr.
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2009-09-18
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1604731419

Governor William F. Winter has enriched the political and cultural life of Mississippi and the United States for six decades—as an infantryman in World War II, as a Mississippi House representative (1947–1959), as governor of Mississippi (1980–1984), as a member of President Bill Clinton's Advisory Board on Race (1997–1998), and as an advocate for education and racial reconciliation. Unlike most public figures, Winter wrote all of his own speeches. The Measure of Our Days: Writings of William F. Winter presents a collection of the governor's most thoughtful writings on his home state, the South, and America in general. A sampling of his ideas from the early 1960s to the present, the volume attests to his progressive political and moral philosophy. Collected, they reveal Winter's keen intellect, quiet wit, and stubborn political courage. The book includes a preface by editor Andrew P. Mullins, Jr., that places Winter in a historical context and gives a brief biography of the politician. Winter is perhaps best known for his leadership in passing the 1982 Mississippi Education Reform Act which, among other things, established public kindergartens in the state. Throughout his long career, Winter has given speeches on a broad range of subjects—race, religion, education, book banning, community building, civil liberties, urban and agricultural development, family, literature, environmental conservation, and history—that testify to the diversity of his interests and his continuing engagement with American affairs.

Uniting Mississippi

Uniting Mississippi
Author: Eric Thomas Weber
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 189
Release: 2015-09-16
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1496803329

Uniting Mississippi applies a new, philosophically informed theory of democratic leadership to Mississippi's challenges. Governor William F. Winter has written a foreword for the book, supporting its proposals. The book begins with an examination of Mississippi's apparent Catch-22, namely the difficulty of addressing problems of poverty without fixing issues in education first, and vice versa. These difficulties can be overcome if we look at their common roots, argues Eric Thomas Weber, and if we practice virtuous democratic leadership. Since the approach to addressing poverty has for so long been unsuccessful, Weber reframes the problem. The challenges of educational failure reveal the extent to which there is a caste system of schooling. Certain groups of people are trapped in schools that are underfunded and failing. The ideals of democracy reject hierarchies of citizenship, and thus, the author contends, these ideals are truly tested in Mississippi. Weber offers theories of effective leadership in general and of democratic leadership in particular to show how Mississippi's challenges could be addressed with the guidance of common values. The book draws on insights from classical and contemporary philosophical outlooks on leadership, which highlight four key social virtues: wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice. Within this framework, the author approaches Mississippi's problems of poverty and educational frustration in a novel way that is applicable in and beyond the rural South. Weber brings to bear each of the virtues of democratic leadership on particular problems, with some overarching lessons and values to advance. The author's editorial essays are included in the appendix as examples of engaging in public inquiry for the sake of democratic leadership.

Once in a Lifetime

Once in a Lifetime
Author: Elise Varner Winter
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2015-05-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1626746044

Once in a Lifetime reveals the broad range of Elise Varner Winter's activities as first lady of Mississippi during the term of her husband, Governor William F. Winter (1980–1984). Drawn from her personal journal, which she kept daily, this account includes the frustrating moments as well as the exhilarating ones, from keeping house to visiting the White House. The position of a state's first lady is one of the most public of roles. Yet few people know what a first lady actually does. In Elise Winter's memoir, her sense of history, her talent, and her perseverance to record her activities and observations provide a unique opportunity for the reader to understand what life in the Mississippi Governor's Mansion was really like on a daily basis. This book reveals her traditional roles—planner of elegant dinners, sophisticated hostess, hands-on gardener, and steward of the Mansion and its historic collection of antique furniture and decorative arts. But she emerged as a modern first lady, intensely interested in public education and in the state penitentiary, for which she developed several important initiatives. She recounts fascinating events from Governor Winter's administration, its tensions and its accomplishments, such as passage of the Education Reform Act, a success in which Elise Winter played an indispensable role. Many of the issues of thirty years ago remain critical today—insufficient funding for education, budget deficits, prison overcrowding, and the need for prison reform. Elise Winter observes everyone and everything with a fresh eye for detail and describes them all with honesty, clarity, and simplicity. Her observations reflect her intellect and insight, as well as her sense of humor. This is a woman's story, a human story, about hopes and doubts, about setting high standards and sometimes feeling inadequate, and about the imperative of continual efforts to make her state a better place for all who live there.

The Mississippi Governor's Mansion

The Mississippi Governor's Mansion
Author: Phil Bryant
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 113
Release: 2019-10-23
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1496826388

Welcoming its first executive in 1842, the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion is the second-oldest continuously occupied governor’s residence in the United States. The Mansion is both a public building open for tours and the private residence of the governor and his family. In this unique book, readers are invited to explore the entirety of the building, from the attic to the garage and everything in between. The Mississippi Governor’s Mansion: Memories of the People’s Home is the first book of its kind dedicated to images and stories about the Governor’s Mansion. The volume reveals Governor Phil Bryant’s profound respect for the office he holds and his deep appreciation for the National Historic Landmark in which he resides. Through his personal, often touching reflections, Governor Bryant pays tribute to former governors, their families, and the many public servants who have dedicated their lives to taking care of this beautiful Greek Revival masterpiece. More than sixty elegant watercolor paintings by noted Mississippi artist Bill Wilson accompany the governor’s stories. Wilson captures the beauty and majesty of the home, its furnishings, and the restored historic grounds. The volume also features a personal foreword by First Lady Deborah Bryant inviting readers into her home, an artist’s statement by Wilson, and a brief historical essay written by Mansion curator Megan Bankston.

The Hardest Deal of All

The Hardest Deal of All
Author: Charles C. Bolton
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 302
Release: 2005
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1604730609

Race has shaped public education in the Magnolia State, from Reconstruction through the Carter Administration. For The Hardest Deal of All: The Battle Over School Integration in Mississippi, 1870-1980 Charles C. Bolton mines newspaper accounts, interviews, journals, archival records, legal and financial documents, and other sources to uncover the complex story of one of Mississippi's most significant and vexing issues. This history closely examines specific events--the after-math of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the 1966 protests and counter-demonstrations in Grenada, and the efforts of particular organizations--and carefully considers the broader picture. Despite a separate but equal doctrine established in the late nineteenth century, the state's racially divided school systems quickly developed vast differences in terms of financing, academic resources, teacher salaries, and quality of education. As one of the nation's poorest states, Mississippi could not afford to finance one school system adequately, much less two. For much of the twentieth century, whites fought hard to preserve the dual school system, in which the maintenance of one-race schools became the most important measure of educational quality. Blacks fought equally hard to end segregated schooling, realizing that their schools would remain underfunded and understaffed as long as they were not integrated. Charles C. Bolton is professor and chair of history and co-director of the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. He is the coauthor of Mississippi: An Illustrated History and coeditor of The Confessions of Edward Isham: A Poor White Life of the Old South . Bolton's work has also appeared in the Journal of Southern History, Journal of Mississippi History, and Mississippi Folklife .

James Z. George

James Z. George
Author: Timothy B. Smith
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2012-03-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1626742375

“When the Mississippi school boy is asked who is called the ‘Great Commoner’ of public life in his state," wrote Mississippi’s premier historian Dunbar Rowland in 1901, “he will unhesitatingly answer James Z. George.” While George’s prominence, along with his white supremacist views, have decreased through the decades since then, many modern historians still view him as a supremely important Mississippian, with one writing that George (1826–1897) was “Mississippi's most important Democratic leader in the late nineteenth century.” Certainly, the Mexican War veteran, prominent lawyer and planter, Civil War officer, Reconstruction leader, state Supreme Court chief justice, and Mississippi’s longest-serving United States senator to that time deserves a full biography. And George’s importance was greater than just on the state level as other southerners copied his tactics to secure white supremacy in their own states. That James Z. George has never had a full, academic biography is inexplicable. James Z. George: Mississippi’s Great Commoner seeks to rectify the lack of attention to George’s life. In doing so, this volume utilizes numerous sources, never or only slightly used, primarily a large collection of George’s letters held by his descendants and never used by historians. Such wonderful sources allow a glimpse not only into the life and times of James Z. George, but perhaps more importantly an exploration of the man himself, his traits, personality, and ideas. The result is a picture of an extremely commonplace individual on the surface, but an exceptionally complicated man underneath. James Z. George: Mississippi’s Great Commoner will bring this important Mississippi leader of the nineteenth century back into the minds of twenty-first-century Mississippians.

Delta Epiphany

Delta Epiphany
Author: Ellen B. Meacham
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2018-04-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 149681746X

In April 1967, a year before his run for president, Senator Robert F. Kennedy knelt in a crumbling shack in Mississippi trying to coax a response from a listless child. The toddler sat picking at dried rice and beans spilled over the dirt floor as Kennedy, former US attorney general and brother to a president, touched the boy's distended stomach and stroked his face and hair. After several minutes with little response, the senator walked out the back door, wiping away tears. In Delta Epiphany: Robert F. Kennedy in Mississippi, Ellen B. Meacham tells the story of Kennedy's visit to the Delta, while also examining the forces of history, economics, and politics that shaped the lives of the children he met in Mississippi in 1967 and the decades that followed. The book includes thirty-seven powerful photographs, a dozen published here for the first time. Kennedy's visit to the Mississippi Delta as part of a Senate subcommittee investigation of poverty programs lasted only a few hours, but Kennedy, the people he encountered, Mississippi, and the nation felt the impact of that journey for much longer. His visit and its aftermath crystallized many of the domestic issues that later moved Kennedy toward his candidacy for the presidency. Upon his return to Washington, Kennedy immediately began seeking ways to help the children he met on his visit; however, his efforts were frustrated by institutional obstacles and blocked by powerful men who were indifferent and, at times, hostile to the plight of poor black children. Sadly, we know what happened to Kennedy, but this book also introduces us to three of the children he met on his visit, including the baby on the floor, and finishes their stories. Kennedy talked about what he had seen in Mississippi for the remaining fourteen months of his life. His vision for America was shaped by the plight of the hungry children he encountered there.

Democracy Delayed

Democracy Delayed
Author: Charles W. Eagles
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2010-06-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 082033622X

Historians have customarily explained the 1920s in terms of urban-rural conflict, arguing that cultural, ethnic, and economic differences between urban and rural Americans erupted to intensify and influence political conflict in the decade. In Democracy Delayed, Charles W. Eagles uses the issue of congressional reapportionment to examine politics in the 1920s, in particular to test the urban-rural thesis. After the 1920 census, the United States Congress for the first time failed to reapportion the House of Representatives as required by the Constitution. The 1920 enumeration showed that for the first time more people lived in urban areas than in rural areas. During a decade-long stalemate, congressional debates over reapportionment legislation contained repeated examples of violence and hostility as rural representatives resisted acceding to increased urban interests. Eagles points out that previous studies employing the urban-rural theory use an abstract model borrowed from the social sciences. Eagles combines historiography, narrative political history, and legislative roll-call analysis to provide extensive concrete evidence and a more precise definition of the urban-rural interpretation.