James Meredith and the Ole Miss Riot


Book Description

In September 1962, James Meredith became the first African American admitted to the University of Mississippi. A milestone in the civil rights movement, his admission triggered a riot spurred by a mob of three thousand whites from across the South and all but officially stoked by the state's segregationist authorities. Historians have called the Oxford riot nothing less than an insurrection and the worst constitutional crisis since the Civil War. The escalating conflict prompted President John F. Kennedy to send twenty thousand regular army troops, in addition to federalized Mississippi National Guard soldiers, into the civil unrest (ten thousand into the town itself) to quell rioters and restore law and order. James Meredith and the Ole Miss Riot is the memoir of one of the participants, a young army second lieutenant named Henry Gallagher, born and raised in Minnesota. His military police battalion from New Jersey deployed, without the benefit of riot-control practice or advance briefing, into a deadly civil rights confrontation. He was thereafter assigned as the officer-in-charge of Meredith's security detail at a time when he faced very real threats to his life. Gallagher's first-person account considers the performance of his fellow soldiers before and after the riot. He writes of the behavior of the white students, some of them defiant, others perceiving a Communist-inspired Kennedy conspiracy in Meredith's entry into Mississippi's “flagship” university. The author depicts the student, Meredith, a man who at times seemed disconnected with the violent reality that swirled around him, and who even aspired to be freed of his protectors so that he could just be another Ole Miss student. James Meredith and the Ole Miss Riot is both an invaluable perspective on a pivotal moment in American history and an in-depth look at a unique home front military action. From the vantage of the fiftieth anniversary of the riot, Henry T. Gallagher reveals the young man he was in the midst of one of history's most profound tests, a soldier from the Midwest encountering the powder keg of the Old South and its violent racial divisions.




Becoming Gold


Book Description

FOREMOST among the alchemists of the Hellenized world, the "divine" Zosimos practiced a sacred art in which metaphysical and metallurgical realities were fundamentally intertwined. Rather than being an exclusive product of Alexandrian syncretism, however, the dual spiritual and material emphasis of this alchemy reveals much deeper roots than expected: roots which extend deep into the religious cultures of the Ancient Near East. Through the methods of "cultural biography" and "thick description," Becoming Gold guides the reader deep into the temple culture of Roman Egypt, where the role of scribal priest intersects explicitly with the metallurgical craft traditions. Going beyond generalizations, Grimes explores the metal-coloring techniques developed in Egyptian polychromic statuary, as well as the rituals of statue animation performed by the priests of the House of Life. In this light, Zosimos is increasingly revealed as a scribal priest responsible for preserving and translating ancient Egyptian metallurgical recipes; a high-ranking goldsmith who oversaw temple statue makers. Against the wider backdrop of late antique religion and philosophy, Grimes also details the fascinating connections between alchemy, theurgy, and gnosticism. Here, Zosimos's spiritual attitudes are explored through the daimonic versus astrological influences upon alchemical operations; meditative practices using mirrors of electrum to attain divine gnosis; and the overarching imperative to transform the bonds of embodiment into vehicles for divinity. Zosimos reveals an alchemy in which spiritual and material realities are ultimately nondual; in which metals becomes living bodies for divine spirits; and in which the immortal soul--luminous and golden--radiates through its material forms.




The Price of Defiance


Book Description

Presents the history of the efforts to integrate the University of Mississippi, describing James Meredith's struggles to become its first African-American student and the conflict between segregationist Governor Ross Barnet and federal law enforcement officials.




The Routledge International Handbook of Student-Centered Learning and Teaching in Higher Education


Book Description

The movement away from teacher-centered toward student-centered learning and teaching (SCLT) in higher education has intensified in recent decades. Yet in spite of its widespread use in literature and policy documents, SCLT remains somewhat poorly defined, under-researched and often misinterpreted. Against this backdrop, The Routledge International Handbook of Student-Centered Learning and Teaching in Higher Education offers an original, comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the fundamentals of SCLT and its discussion and applications in policy and practice. Bringing together 71 scholars from around the world, the volume offers a most comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the fundamentals of SCLT and its applications in policy and practice; provides beacons of good practice that display how instructional expertise manifests itself in the quality of classroom learning and teaching and in the institutional environment; and critically discusses challenges, new directions and developments in pedagogy, course and study program design, classroom practice, assessment and institutional policy. An essential resource, this book uniquely offers researchers, educators and students in higher education new insights into the roots, latest thinking, practices and evidence surrounding SCLT in higher education.




Fairest


Book Description

Finalist for the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction "Talusan sails past the conventions of trans and immigrant memoirs." --The New York Times Book Review "A ball of light hurled into the dark undertow of migration and survival." --Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous A singular, beautifully written coming-of-age memoir of a Filipino boy with albinism whose story travels from an immigrant childhood to Harvard to a gender transition and illuminates the illusions of race, disability, and gender Fairest is a memoir about a precocious boy with albinism, a "sun child" from a rural Philippine village, who would grow up to become a woman in America. Coping with the strain of parental neglect and the elusive promise of U.S. citizenship, Talusan found childhood comfort from her devoted grandmother, a grounding force as she was treated by others with special preference or public curiosity. As an immigrant to the United States, Talusan came to be perceived as white. An academic scholarship to Harvard provided access to elite circles of privilege but required Talusan to navigate through the complex spheres of race, class, sexuality, and her place within the gay community. She emerged as an artist and an activist questioning the boundaries of gender. Talusan realized she did not want to be confined to a prescribed role as a man, and transitioned to become a woman, despite the risk of losing a man she deeply loved. Throughout her journey, Talusan shares poignant and powerful episodes of desirability and love that will remind readers of works such as Call Me By Your Name and Giovanni's Room. Her evocative reflections will shift our own perceptions of love, identity, gender, and the fairness of life.




San Francisco State University


Book Description

San Francisco State University has promoted educational excellence for more than a century. Established as a vocational school for teachers, it became the first such institute in the United States to require a high school diploma. As the school expanded its curriculum, it became San Francisco State Teachers College (1921), San Francisco State College (1935), and San Francisco State University (1972). Known as the Citys University, San Francisco State is situated on a park-like campus in the southwest corner of San Francisco. The schools mottoexperience teachescommunicates its pragmatic approach to education, and SFSU has developed many internationally respected programs over the years. The schools fascinating history includes complete destruction by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, as well as a five-month student/faculty strike during the late 1960s, which resulted in the founding of the first School of Ethnic Studies (1969) in the United States.




North Carolina Women


Book Description

North Carolina has had more than its share of accomplished, influential women—women who have expanded their sphere of influence or broken through barriers that had long defined and circumscribed their lives, women such as Elizabeth Maxwell Steele, the widow and tavern owner who supported the American Revolution; Harriet Jacobs, runaway slave, abolitionist, and author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; and Edith Vanderbilt and Katharine Smith Reynolds, elite women who promoted women's equality. This collection of essays examines the lives and times of pathbreaking North Carolina women from the late eighteenth century into the early twentieth century, offering important new insights into the variety of North Carolina women's experiences across time, place, race, and class, and conveys how women were able to expand their considerable influence during periods of political challenge and economic hardship, particularly over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These essays highlight North Carolina's progressive streak and its positive impact on women's education—for white and black alike— beginning in the antebellum period on through new opportunities that opened up in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They explore the ways industrialization drew large numbers of women into the paid labor force for the first time and what the implications of this tremendous transition were; they also examine the women who challenged traditional gender roles, as political leaders and labor organizers, as runaways, and as widows. The volume is especially attuned to differences in region within North Carolina, delineating women's experiences in the eastern third of the state, the piedmont, and the western mountains.




Down to the Crossroads


Book Description

In 1962, James Meredith became a civil rights hero when he enrolled as the first African American student at the University of Mississippi. Four years later, he would make the news again when he reentered Mississippi, on foot. His plan was to walk from Memphis to Jackson, leading a "March Against Fear" that would promote black voter registration and defy the entrenched racism of the region. But on the march's second day, he was shot by a mysterious gunman, a moment captured in a harrowing and now iconic photograph. What followed was one of the central dramas of the civil rights era. With Meredith in the hospital, the leading figures of the civil rights movement flew to Mississippi to carry on his effort. They quickly found themselves confronting southern law enforcement officials, local activists, and one another. In the span of only three weeks, Martin Luther King, Jr., narrowly escaped a vicious mob attack; protesters were teargassed by state police; Lyndon Johnson refused to intervene; and the charismatic young activist Stokely Carmichael first led the chant that would define a new kind of civil rights movement: Black Power. Aram Goudsouzian's Down to the Crossroads is the story of the last great march of the King era, and the first great showdown of the turbulent years that followed. Depicting rural demonstrators' courage and the impassioned debates among movement leaders, Goudsouzian reveals the legacy of an event that would both integrate African Americans into the political system and inspire even bolder protests against it. Full of drama and contemporary resonances, this book is civil rights history at its best.




Three Years in Mississippi


Book Description

On October 1, 1962, James Meredith was the first African American student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Preceded by violent rioting resulting in two deaths and a lengthy court battle that made it all the way to the Supreme Court, his admission was a pivotal moment in civil rights history. Citing his “divine responsibility” to end white supremacy, Meredith risked everything to attend Ole Miss. In doing so, he paved the way for integration across the country. Originally published in 1966, more than ten years after the Supreme Court ended segregation in public schools in Brown v. Board of Education, Meredith describes his intense struggle to attend an all-white university and break down long-held race barriers in one of the most conservative states in the country. This first-person account offers a glimpse into a crucial point in civil rights history and the determination and courage of a man facing unfathomable odds. Reprinted for the first time, this volume features a new introduction by historian Aram Goudsouzian.