Senatobia Boycott: 22 Years Ago Today

On this very day twenty two years ago, during my senior year of high school, something happened that would change how I viewed race relations forever. A large majority of the African American students of the Senatobia Separate School District were held out of school by their parents, and an African American boycott of white-owned businesses soon followed, as did a civil rights rally. What sparked this series of boycotts and protests was a white assistant superintendent was hired over an African American candidate for the same position.

Being only 17 at the time, I did not know the whole story surrounding the hiring decision (and I still don't), but I did see how it affected my school and my friends (both black and white) and that I did not like. This month-long holdout effected athletes in spring sports, and the band who was preparing to go on a trip to Gatlinburg, TN to compete in a few weeks, not to mention the disruption in the studies of hundreds of students.

And what things occurred beyond the school room also gave me reason to ponder. As an employee of a white-owned grocery store, I had to escort little old African American ladies to their car with even one item, because certain persons had threatened to confiscate any goods from anyone breaking the boycott. But set against that type of intimidation, there were signs of hope and friendship; like brave classmates of mine..black kids who just wanted to go to school, and their white friends who escorted them as they walked to school and back.

As a part of the first generation to begin school in Mississippi after integration in the early 1970's, I had never known school without people of both races and found the boycott month at school somewhat surreal and, frankly, a little boring. I won't criticize the cause that led to this boycott, I am ignorant of the circumstances..and ultimately the school district caved, so there must have been some merit to the claim. But I saw that racial tensions made everyone's life (even those for whom skin color no longer mattered) more difficult.

I learned that being right is good, but being good to one another is better. I hope some of my classmates from SHS will share their thoughts and recollections on my blog or the Facebook feed.

Nolanbuck

Ghosts of Ole Miss

Featured on the front page of ESPN.com today is a great retelling of the terrible story. It is the story of the riots on the campus of my Alma Mater, Ole Miss, in 1962 during the enrollment of James Meredith, the first African American to attend Ole Miss. This dark narrative is juxtaposed in the piece with the story of the 1962 Ole Miss Rebel football team, one of the best in the college football that year, and probably the best in Ole Miss history.

This story was written by a fellow Mississippian, and it tells the truth of how very far we have come since those dark days, and how far we have yet to go. I am proud to be a Mississippian, I'm proud to be an Ole Miss alum, and I'm proud that my kids are growing up in a Mississippi, where black and white alike live together like never before, and in many ways, like nowhere else. We in the South, both black and white, have had to confront our issues of race, and we are all the better for it.

Sure we have a ways to go yet, but I love that most of the players for Ole Miss's football and basketball teams today are African American, my wife's best friend is African American, and my sons can chose who they befriend, hang out with, love, date and marry based on the content of their character, and not their race.

Alot of things have happened in my home state that make me want to cry, and we're still not perfect. But man, how I love progress.

Nolanbuck (Ole Miss, Class of '91)