The Other Mississippi: A State in Conflict with Itself by David Sansing

Description

William Faulkner said he wrote about the human heart in conflict with itself, and set most of his greatest work in that “postage stamp of native soil” in Mississippi, which like the human heart, is in conflict with itself.

“Slavery is a great evil, (but) a necessary evil, and I do not think admits of a remedy.” Seargent S. Prentiss, 1831

“The University of Mississippi Class of 1867 was implored ‘to embalm in literature…and transmit to posterity…a record of the struggle which just closed.'” T.W. Witherspoon, 1867 Commencement Speaker

“The pen must win what the sword has lost, For our beautiful, beautiful South.” Mississippi Poetess, Democratic Press Association, 1875

“I would therefore recommend…a law giving the family of anyone who may be hereafter lynched a right to recover in the chancery court a fixed sum in damages.” Governor Andrew H. Longino, Inaugural Address, 1900

“Hate or prejudice…will not lead Mississippi..if I must fight, it will not be a rear-guard defense of yesterday…it will be an all out assault for our share of tomorrow.” Governor Paul B. Johnson, Jr., Inaugural Address, 1964

“The Past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun (1951)

So, the true goal, then, may not be to win the battle, but to never quit the struggle.

Paperback • 6×9 • 332 pages • ISBN: 978-1-936946-39-6