Availableforsale outside today and they will all be signinggn copies of their work. You can find the schedule for when they will be available to sign in your program. I encourage you to visit with them. Thank you for doing this. This is wonderful and we are excited about it. Our moderator for the panel today is jerry is the author of Theodore Roosevelt in the assessment. Assassination. Thank you chris. Thank you all for choosing to come to the mississippi History Panel this afternoon. We are fortunate that we have authors for interesting books that cover the entire range of mississippi history from the earliest historical up to the late 20th century. We couldnt ask for a better panel of authors that a wider range of mississippi history tot talk about today. I would like to introduce the authors. To my far left is jim barnett. Retired director of Historic Properties division of the Mississippi Department of archives and history. Author of two books published by the University Press of mississippi. The first is mississippis america indians the second iso the natchez indians which is what he will be discussing t today. S thir his third book beyond control the new channel to the gulf of mexico will be published by the University Press next year. Jim lives in natchez. Next to jim is jim woodrick who lives in richmond. Si he has worked for the Mississippi Department off archives and history. Current director of the Historic Preservation division before that he was in the civil war heights division and as a lifelong student of civil war he is also a member of the Jackson Civil war roundtable and historians of the westernok, whc theater. His book published by his repressed is called the civil war siege of jackson mississippi next to gimenez anne webster, she retired two years ago from mda h. Th you can see theres a pattern here. She had assisted researchers for 35 years. Iv her first book for the University Press of mississippi with co author kathleen is tracing your mississippi tracing your mississippi ancestors today, and and will be discussing her second book for the University Press which is mississippi in the great war, selected letters. Finally to my left is we and us. His longtime professor of history at Montgomery College he is author of the biography,phy howard baker conciliator in the age of crisis. Was senator william first, coauthor of tennessee senators 1911 2001. His book is big jim eastland which was published last month. I have a few questions for panelist to get started. D. I hope the audience will have questions. So, if you have a question please stand at the lectern at the center of the room. That that will be a signal that you have a question. If someone is there we will break away at the earlieston possible opportunity and you can ask your question. N for th my first question for the panel and i thought we could go in chronological order, not by authors age but by the period covered by the. Of history in the books is that would you please briefly describe your book and tell us how you came to write a book and what drew you to the subject of the book. Starting with jim please. I think my age qualifies me as chronologically the oldest anyway so im in the right spot. My book, the history of the natchez indians covers the m history of what i think is one of the most important American Indian groups in north america. If you look at the history from the beginning of the lasalle expedition in the late 16 hundreds until 1735, it is only about 50 years how long of a history is a history is that . But in that fiftyyear time. We had some major events that take place that really shaped the Lower Mississippi valley and mississippi louisiana untilur today and into the future. We had the establishment of french louisiana, the french french colony based on the gulf coast. There is the rise and fall of the indian slave trade. Something that many people arew. Very familiar with. I cover them in my book and there are other books that covem it in much more detail. Comin the third thing is the companyi of the indians which brought thousands of people over here from france to settle in the Lower Mississippi valley. Finally, the french establishment of fort rosalie in natchez in august 171, 6300 years ago this month. In. In natchez we just had a big celebration to commemorate that. These were huge events in just a fiftyyear time. The natchez indians were right in the middle of it. They were key players mainly because of their location on the mississippi river. There had been a number of articles written about the natchez, mainly concerned with their ceremonial culture, things about them that today reallyhemi make them distinguish them from other American Indian groups in this area. But, the only only history that had been written before i did my book was written in 1911. It was written by an excellent historian, john swanton. That was a long time long time ago and a lot of things changed since swanton wrote his history, especially ideas about how we look at the American Indian societies that were here when europeans came to colonize. Those ideas have changed and matured quite a bit. I hope that what i the way i w said in my book is an uptodate and modern look at this very important indian group. You ask how i came to write this book, i have been interested in the natchez indians for a long time. I was fortunate enough to have my office at the grim village of the the natchez indians for 33 years. So i had a chance to study the natchez culture. Just by chance i wrote an article for the journal of the mississippi history on the african slave trade, the domestic slave trade in north america. That is not something i am an expert in by any means. But i wrote the article and craig from the University Press called me and asked if i would want to write a book about the slave trade. So that i said well i would rather write a book about indians and i know a little bit about so thats how that came about. Thats my interest in history, i credit that to dinosaurs and david crockett. [laughter] when i was a kid i found out through those sources and walt disney what a wonderful place the past is and how you get to it through books and the way you get to visit that place. So i am am proud to be participating in this. Thank you jim. Jim woodruff would you please tell us about your book. I be happy to. First of all i would like to echo what chris said. Its an its an honor to be here. This beautiful place and im so glad all of you are here participating in the book festival. It is wonderful event. I will start out with how the book came about. Mine is somewhat locational as well. I have have worked in downtown jackson for 30 years and i have the privilege of working next door to our old capital museum. I have been a student of the civil war, particularly in in mississippi for most of my life. As all of you are well acquainted with the vicksburg campaign. I had realized that part of that story that had not been told and that is what occurred directly after the siege of pittsburgh which ended on july four, 1863. That is the Jackson Campaign. And the siege of jackson. As i looked around i remember i was reading a diary entry there was a Union Soldier who was writing his wife. He was sitting on the south stoop of the State Capitol building at that time. Et it was not the old capital yet. He said he could not go inside to tour because they had guards posted and i thought well that is a shame. But then i thought well im looking out the window as i am reading this at the spot where that soldier sat. So i decided at that point that i needed to do something about that. Dear friend had approach me years before about redoing an earlier book on the battle and siege of jackson. He had the the audacity to die before we got that project done. But the idea stayed with me and the result is the siege of jackson book. The seeds siege of jackson took place in the second week of jul. Grant sends his most trusted lieutenant, William Sherman back towards jackson to deal with an army under the command of general joseph johnston. Johnson has been around in Madison County throughout may and june with about 33000 men under an army called the army of relief. Re the object of that army was to relieve vicksburg. But he never made an attempt to do that. But he was a skillful commander and grant could not leave that army in his rear and abandoned vicksburg back to the confederates. So the siege took place for a weeks time in jackson. I will not give you too many many details. I want you to buy the book. But i will say that for a week there was 70000 men, blue and gray, right here in downtown jackson. In fact the spot where we are now was at the time the state penitentiary. There is no connection between the state penitentiary in the state capital. But the fighting took place around us. Be i hope from this book people will be able to appreciate that history took place right here amongst us. And and can you please tell us about your book. I am not a historian. I am a research librarian. I was in that capacity at the state archives for a very longhr time and i assisted researchers from all over the world to come and do research in our facility. We used to have a Collection Development meetings and we would come up with we have gaps in the collection and i remember world war i, the great depression, other gaps that we had. Nd so i started plunging in the collection and i happened upon, this is years ago, Works Progress administration papers, the wpa in mississippi compiled county histories. One of the topics was more for each county. Usually the only were discussed was the civil war. But every now and then world war i was included in that chapter. So i just talked that away for eons actually. Until a professor came along and wanted to have his class do a world war i project. And so that made me think about what else did we have on world war i, which was not a lot. We did have some collections that i had never explored because nobody had ever asked me about world war i. So i started looking at what collections we had and then i also started pulling those wpa war chapters and what i found was they were typescript of letters that appeared in newspapers. So that meant there was a lot more out there or to my way of thinking. So i started in addition to looking at the private collections on world war i at the archives, reading, county newspapers from all around the state. I did want to try to cover all areas of the state. And i succeeded to some degree but actually not as much as i had like to because some towns where i thought there would be letters to the editor, publications from the boys boysv overseas there were not any. I was very surprise. It could be that the addition of the paper that we happen to have on microfilm, that was not the addition that had the letters. I know different editions usedi to be but i dont know if early on in 1917 in in 1918 theres two or three editions of the paper. I did the best i could. I found some wonderful letters. I tried to have men who served. I found a lot of women who went over as red cross nurses or just army nurses they resign their cert church positions and theyn went to work for the ymca and i thought that was in an interesting slant and i had a wired array of individuals to include in the book. I think the reason i continued as i was compiling information and finding more and more and thinking this really might be a book and why, i said because no one is really when i have been at the archives the main topics of research are the civil war and civil rights. As i said, im sorry its time to tell a little bit more of the history of the state because in the thousands of boxes, gray hollinger boxes at the archives there is an untold story that people are not delving into. They are using the internet, i love the internet, however there are so many fast collections that are untouched and out there for researchers to discover and im still plugging for the archives. You need to to come down and see whats there because it is very Incredible Holdings that are waiting for you to discover them. Thank you and. Lee would you tell us about your book. I was working on a book from senator baker about 2006 and i o was thinking what it was as i drove across mississippi i think it about who would be my next project. There are number of southern senators of whom were in the 1950s and 60s, and 70s really powerful souls who had not yet had a good biography written. Let me suggest you there is not a full biography of john stennis or john mcclellan, or or john sparkman. I would encourage anybody who is out there to take a try at it. This this needs doing. But there also is jim eastland. I was not sure there is a story to tell here but as i read more about the political history in 2006 and 2007 i started seeingda tales about jim eastland being a conservative senators like jesse helms and warren hatch and then i was really surprised when i saw people like ted kennedy and joe biden and Gaylord Nelson and forgotten senator who is the father of earth day would alsoso went to jim eastland for advice. This is a story that i felt like i should tell. If i got the chance. Chance. I got the chance i pursued it. And again this is a story i got to know mississippi, great people, great food, great music, its worth coming down here. If you do not get a chance and i have not had a dull moment since i started this project. Thank you panel us. I will ask my followup question now and then if you like we will open the floor to questions from the audience. The question is, as both a reader reader and an author of history books, one it the things i try to think about is the relevance to the subject. Whatat what does this book even though it is said in the past, what does it have to say about today, why should it be of interest to an audience today. What do i expect the reader, todays reader to take away from the subject thats going to be meaningful . So my question to you to the panelist is in your particular subject, what is it that you would like the reader to take away from your book that would speak directly to todays world . There are number of things td take away from any book on history. With the natchez indians, especially there is a story of of a group of people, and ethnic group that happened to be where they were when colonization came to the Lower Mississippi valley. After 1735 the natchez people had to leave their homeland, archaeologically we can say that there are there for about 1000 years before that time. They left their homeland in 1735 and went toward the east because they had just been fighting a war with the french which made them allies of the english and the english were in carolina. That was in 1735. In the 1930s, the first time that anthropologist were in the world to harass native peoplevel and again gathering information about lots of cultures, there were natchez people in oklahoma who still spoke the natcheztill language. That is 200 years after there is any need for there to be a natchez language. But there were people speaking the natchez language in eastern oklahoma in the 1930s. Those speakers have passed on. There are no active speakers of the natchez language although the natchez people they call themselves. Theyre trying toc bring it back to life. Their sound recordings at Michigan State university and lots of information about what the natchez language was like. So the language there trying to bring it back as a living language. But their language is just one aspect of their total society. These people are still here, theyre not recognized by the federal government. But they are still here and in my career with the department of archives and history i have been fortunate enough to get to know some of these people. The take away is that societies that we think maybe are gone, they have a way of staying alive. I think a couple of things i have alluded to the first one already and that is that the siege of jackson took place right here even though there are no evident signs that any military action took place here. Jackson does not look like the Vicksburg National military park. But if you know what youre looking for and i have tried to paint a picture in the book about what was here at the time and what little remains, i think we need to remember what took place there, markets in someway, may be a take away will be that there will be some sort of interpretive effort down the road and i think also for any civil war book that i read i always look for the human stories and i tried to focus on the stories of the individualsir who served in this campaign from the private to the major general. I think what i have reallyk helped folks we get from that is that they were not cartoon figures. These are very complicated individuals with the same fears and desires that we have today. I think that we tend sometimes to make history to blackandwhite, too simple, they were for this, they were for that. This is the way that. This is the way they ate. It is not always that easy. One good example of that is the commander of the union expedition, William T Sherman who everyone seems to have an opinion on sherman whether good or bad. And here he exhibited both good and bad traits. Oday. That is just like what we are today. I guess my take away would be that these are just people. How many of you remember studying world war i in your u. S. History course . Will that is more than i thought. My course we never got to worldd war i because we spent so much time on the american revolutione and the civil war. I know that i got to world war i when i was at the w because i still have my textbooks and i pulled it for this book and read and i underline thing so i got there for that. But people i talk to consider world war i to be the forgottenn war. We just just do not talk about it. Ab we dont study it. And the world changed with world war i. Worl we became a recognized world leader after world war i. And even those these individuals with individual letters, these were farm fit boys for the most part. People who had never left, never left mississippi i never left their hometown i think all of the ones i found were willing to go and serve. In some cases i wondered why that has not happened before. He went early because he thought it was a just cause. My question is what if we havent entered that war . The world would be a different place. E be as for its relevant today lately i was not aware of the consequences. All of this trouble in the middle east that we are having now, so many of those countries involved evolved after world war i. Promises were made after world war i and we did not live up to them. And conflict is is still resulting today because of that. So if it is any more relevant i do not know how you can be any more relevant the wars we are fighting right now. Go back and read the results of world war i and you will seed promises were made and not kept. But also because world war i technological advances were made, military advances, tanks, artillery, the bad things. But the field of psychology and psychiatry, treating shellshocked victims, the Plastic Surgeon field came into a great boom after all of thesee individuals faced these terrible injuries. So the world chains changed and we made a difference but i dont think we appreciate the fact that these men and women served. For James Eastland in many ways he was the public face of a way of life which i hope that time has passed. On the other hand, if you look at eastland you can explore amana big contradictions. Big contradictions. A man who did work across partyy lines easily with members of both parties. He literally did see the supportings of people and seems to support members of the other party we worked with rather strongly. Rather closely on measures which did not affect civil rights. Maybe that is something that needs to come back into our politics. We see an era of that and all of this can probably blame one party more than another or more one candidate more than another. I think most everybody is pretty guilty of it these days unfortunately. I think that should come back. There is also one other thing that if you look at this book you are going to find that a number of changes in James Eastlands attitudes are going to develop between his 40s in his seventies. During the time and many of them are produced by something he opposed rather strongly called the bony rights act of 1965. You might be able to trace the relationship with a very different man named aaron henry. It was after after the essay assassination and the head of the and naacp. These guys are very Close Friends by 1978. Aaron henry literally was in the back office when eastland announced his retirement. He was trying out maybe aaron henry forever the motives he may have looked at the power to work for the black community as he never had been before. But they had developed a close relationship. Eastland had hired a man named ed cole who was an an africanamerican who ran Charles Evers campaign. He had become friends with a man a lot of us remember and someone can look at the sports films named walter payton. One of the Better Running mates ive ever seen. R by 1985 James Eastland was dying. One of the last thing she did was send a 500dollar check to the state naacp in the name of aaron henry he said made it possible for him so heres the change that develops and i hope change in that sense continues to develop in our society. Okay, thank you all. Is anything the panel has said prompted any questions . If if so please feel free to step up. I dont know if this man is leaving or if he is coming to hes leaving. Okay. But if you do have a question please feel free to step up. This lady has a question. I did not plan on may be in the only one to ask a question. Hopefully you will wont be the only one. James eastland was a skilledd politician who probably loved his wife, his family, and his dog area but he was also a segregationist and a racist. Why is it that southerners, many southerners have so much difficulty accepting his role and the role of many southerntho politicians in basically destroying the lives of so many generations of black people . You know there is value in those lives. As good as eastland or stennis,l whomever was, they still destroy peoples lives through racisms, oppression, and terrorism. Why is that so hard for many southerners to accept . That is a good question. Not sure of the answer. If you look at what James Eastland read. There is a great book by a man who is here earlier named jason ward on the ideology of segregationists. This was something that jim he slid was born into. There is one, we follow follow the lynching of a man named James Eastland who is the brother of James Eastland father. But after that 11 people died as a result of of the first James Eastland being killed. As far as southerners accepting that, i think that people reflect their constituencies. And James Eastland reflected the white constituency. He he reflected the people who electeo him. I think as far as white peopled today have not learned, eastland was learning. Some of the others did learn. By the 70s and 80s if they didnt learn of her psychological reasons they certainly learned or for political reasons. Especially for democrats you who need tou recognize thatneedde democraticy is no longer monolithic white agency. Youre gonna need the africanamerican votes to get reelected. But as far as southerners and southern whites not accepting it, i think that is something i think most of the folks that i have run across to share thoses prejudices are people my age or older. What at times i guess the thea case wasnt that if you are looking at in the case of James Eastland in 1961 he did cut a deal a deal for the freedom riders to be protected. Ross barnett would not have cut that. They were kept in jail they were not hurt but they are kept in jail and that was the agreement with bobby kennedy. But southerners do not, i think think it is still learning process. Arning it may take another hundred years, got help us if it does. We do not have that much time. So i hope not. It said to say, youre youre right. Okay thank you for the question. Did you have a questions or . Most of these will be for lee. Did you ever find that pictureyr of aaron hug and kiss and senator easley . I did not see that picture. I guess it was aaron henry came down here in 1978 and i believe the old ms. And take kennedy was also there and the great story is that he kissed, aaron henry kissed jim eastland which and take kennedy thereafter was, there are two things i want to see. One is that picture of Henry Kissinger him eastland and then Jim Eastlands reaction when he saw the picture of aaron kissing him. But no, i did not see it. The Previous Panel in here and i apologize for not remembering the nice ladys name. She made a very compelling and strong argument that senator stennis was actually more damaging to the africanamerican people than eastland was. And i wondered if you had any comparison you would want to make specifically to civil rights between eastland and stennis . They both voted a straight segment gradation is line. They voted together more than any senators most years. 97 they voted together. They talked about not only how they were going to vote but what arguments they would use to defend their t votes. If one was going to be on a rare occasion be on a rare occasion they would disagree they would let each other know why theyre going to disagree. It was a very strong working arrangement although the two are as different as night and day. Lt some say that stennis camehat sn around earlier. Ar obviously the Previous Panelist disagrees. Over a period of time he was supposed, according to her and its very convincing, stennis was more damaging may be becauss he was more subtle and did it in the back room more than an in an open committee or senate hearing. It was really very interesting. Who is the best book on stennis . There have just been a couple. There is a book on stennis in vietnam. Again that is not one that i consulted much and theres a very new one which is very celebratory biography. And i do i do not think there has been a full complete biography of john stennis. Again, encourage people, heres a great study. Thank you sir. Ch jackson. We know jackson was nicknamed in your book goes into that and i want to know what buildings, i know we had the old capital the Governors Mansion in the home up behind here that apparentlyre survived, but where did they, for they destroyed and had to be rebuilt . What lived after the siege of jackson . Absolutely. I have to confess that i went into looking at this book with the assumption is i regret to say told many people throughout the years that jackson had not been destroyed to as great an extent as had been advertised by that nickname jimmy ville. But when i got into the research i realize that it had been so i had to back up and take another look at it. So my conclusion is that i hope i made the case is that both armies contributed to the destruction of jackson, not only during the july seas but also during the may battle of jackson. But of course to the larger extent the damage was done by the union army. Jackson rebuiltt fairly quickly and based on newspaper ads or builders that are coming back in, comparing the city directories, weve had anec opportunity to see that change take place after the war. What has tripped people up through the years is there was a wonderful panoramic photograph taken from the kubla of the state capital by a local photographer. Shows a city that is fairlyy robust for its time. So a lot of people, including me assume that the damage really wasnt that good. So what i hope i proved his thao the city, we are not looking at a photograph of the city that wasnt destroyed, were looking at a photograph of the city that was rebuilt. As rebuilt. As far as what remains, ity understand there are about 12 structures that are considered antebellum. Of course you have already named the primary ones, the city hall, the old capital, the governorsc mansion and a few other buildings here and there. Many of the residences along north state street disappeared around the time of the turnofthecentury. Right before your war. Because those were updating the houses and it was simply that. I think jackson earned the namen jimmy ville. Thank you. Can you explain the mechanics of how the letters work. You mention also did you find any letters from africanamerican newspapers or africanamerican clergy or soldiers, or any of the other people you have mentioned . Well well the letters for thf most part were actually sent to the editor of the paper because he was saying the soldier wassag saying i cannot write my mother, my daddy, my sweetheart, my friends. They might write their mama but then he would write dear editor would you see that my friends in the county so if you publish this i wont write everybody because i dont have time. So a lot lot of the editors were very accommodating. They published a lot and the gentleman in natchez were very willing to publish the letters. A few others appeared but thoseg are the big three a think that publish the letters from home. We did find some africanamerican letters, there are some included regretfully the newspapers on microfilm at the archives for africanamerican newspapers dont start until after the war. So we have i think from the 1930s and 40s but we did not but have any from the mid century there. So i did not have any from africanamerican newspapers i actually wanted to see if i could find native american soldiers as well when i tried the chopped out community and the shelby democrat, whatever but i was not able to find any native american letters as wells and could you speak a little bit about the experience of africanamerican soldiers in world war i. I thought that was an interesting component of the book. Well the ones that i fountain i did find this to be true. Of course they were not able to serve quote as fighting soldiers. But they were in the service ofn supply so they were right behiny the lines helping the engineers with building roads, getting the foodstuff to the front, making sure the wounded head care in the back of the lines as well as i found some africanamericans who were stevedores, theyre helping unload the cargo from the ship so when the coal was coming or the ammunition was being sent over they were helping to unload the ships with the cargo. Whats interesting is one of the pastors Philip Davidson who hade been a pastor at the st. James Episcopal Church in greensville work for the ymca. He explained that he was about 10 miles behind the front line, he had camps that he service, ymca camps. Two or africanamerican into her white. Then he said he did the same service at each one. Vice at he said we have music, we have games for them. We try to provide writing materials and of course i offer religiousofoffer services to both. Thank you. Yes sir. Regarding the natchez indians, could you giveding the Historical Context as totext a ethnically and culturally for them compared to the choctaws and chickasaws in mississippi . I will try to. The natchez indians were not a single ethnic group. They were confederacy. P. The choctaws also were confederacy, the chicken saws were confederacy. These were groups of people who, because of the european invasion of north america they were clumping together for protection. So that Natchez Group had at least three ethnic groups that made up their socalled the natchez tribe. The natchez people, the people who had been there. [inaudible] and then these other groups that were more or less refugee groups that had attach themselves to the natchez. The. [inaudible] or two of these groups that came in and they joined with the natchez. So when the natchez then left their homeland and went out toward the east and were settling with other indian groups, interestingly they took some African Americans with them than the natchez people became sort of fused with the creeks, cherokees, and these groups over there toward the east. So their ethnicity kind of got spread out some. But as i said earlier, their language miraculously held on for 200 years after there is a need for it to exist. Thank you. I have researched and written for books of history in my experience has been that when you are doing research there are some things you expect to findy and some things, and you find them, or something to expect to find you dont find in their other things that you find that take you by surprise, thats been my experience. S for instance when i wrotete theater roosevelt and thets be assassin, i was really struck by how the political situations in 1912 when roosevelt was running for his third term was sovi similar to the situation today, concern between a growing divide between the rich and poor, widespread feeling that government was not working and needed to be fixed, a split in the republican party, so my question for the panelist is, what was there and doing your research that really took you by surprise . What did you find that just came out of the blue . And whoever would like to tackle that. For me, i was fortunate enough when i was writing my book that the French National library in paris at that time was scanning and posting online there on believable collection of maps from the french colonial. From around the world. Od a friend of mine, a natchez name smokey joe frank contacted me and said and told me where too look on the website. There is an amazing map by this engineer and he made a number of maps of the Lower Mississippi valley area for the french. I had seen some of his maps but i had never never seen this one before. It was a manuscript matt which means it was never published. In the bibliometric tech website they dont have it anymore, they took it down or some. Son. It used to have this zoom feature where you could zoom in on this amazing map and rutans map was a surveyed map, not just a schematic map like some of the other french maps were. You could actually go down roads and see houses. One thing that he did was he wrote down the names of the french columnists living in natchez. This was 1723. You can actually go and look at where these people live. Some people who later became quite well known. So the opportunity to see this wonderful map. Now i have a good color copy of it thanks to the university of North Carolina chapel hill. In the department of archives and history at natchez has a fullsize copy of this map. Be but these colonial maps being put on line like that allow people like me to see them. Theyu otherwise they wouldve been rolled up and kept in the french archives. Who knows who wouldve gotten the chance to look at them. So that was an example of a good surprise. Thank you. I have read hundreds of letters from all over the state. What struck me is i actually knew some of the families represented there. I was just blown away. I had four individuals i found that i knew families today related to these people. Samuel coy help preserve a lot of buildings on the state. Earl waters was it in a good friend of my from the w whose last name happened to be waters. And i just said thats not unusual name you dont see that mississippi every day. Would you happen to have a a relative who was in world war i and she said all uncle earl was and i went dog, theres uncle earl. Doctor james percy wall was a jackson position. Ja he lived up the street from my family in belhaven. I was a child. But i remember my parents talking about him. Who knew. In. And the final one that i happened upon was oh gosh, let me think was a church member, the cavett family are still active members of the galloway church. I found a letter from bank cavett. I thought how small could this be that you run across people that you actually know where their relative. Did you want to jump intos jim . Have already alluded to the Biggest Surprise is that i have been wrong so many years and then had to change my mind. Kind of related to what jim said earlier. I think i was surprised most and i have to give credit to thoseov out there around the country who are doing so much terrific work digitizing records. This is a fantastic time to be a researcher. There never all gonna be digitized, youll still need to go to the archive. Thats right. [laughter] i did. But of course i wasse surprised by the amount of information that is available out there now. The Jackson Campaign simply had not been covered to any great extent and almost no personal accounts and when i began really digging i found more than i could handle. And that is always nice. But i was really surprised by the amount of material that is out there. Ive been pleasantly surprised that we too. Folks from Library Congress are downstairs and i dont know if you are familiar with online database that they have called chronicling america. They have thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of newspapers for more than 100 years on American History online, available to anybody. You can search by keyword. If anybody. You can search by keyword. If you are not familiar with it and you love history it is a fabulous resource. I think you wanted to say something. Yes. One thing about about senator eastland as he is pretrade as the most andu training jenin segregationist. But i was surprised at how easy it was to get to his colleagues. Theyre. Theyre not always easy to get to. Its easier to get to his colleagues and those of senator howard baker was one of the more popular senators amongst both parties. People wanted wanted t tell a story on all sides. And i surprise that some of them some of the more liberal weretors were amongst those who had the best stories because they differed so much. But just one story that maybe we historians like it. One of of d the great tales i found was on attorney general nicholas memoir about when president kennedy spoke to the nation the night of the battle of oxford in 1962. And supposedly eastland was at home and on the plantation there watching president kennedy speak in his guest walked up to the tv and kicked in the tube. Now thats a great tail is in it. One little problem, eastland wad in washington. A at the time so that could not happen. There were holed up in johnston this office with six members of the mississippi delegation. They tried to get a hold of ross barnett for three hours. Think about it these days could a senator get hold of a governor like that just with speed dial . Yes. Ve but three hours, or powerful people ticketholder their governor. And then with the whole thing about the kicked in tv, just recognize that we use the ghostwriters. [laughter] i think we have five minutes or less left. So this is the last call for questions from ths audience. Consi going once,. Okay, jim barnett address this a little in his opening comments about where his love for history came from. I have a very specific place were my love of history came from, i was five was five years old and the older friend of my parents we would take in tell me the stories of the american revolution. For me that was the beginning of a lifelong love of history. So im wondering whether any of the other panelists, and already has one has a similar epiphany as a child or some other point in your life where you really felt like you have fallen in love with history. Do you remember when we stand mississippi history required in the seventh grade. Bailey Junior High School was given the assignment to write a paper on somebody, i think it was welty that i went went to write a paper on. My mother said, well you want Something Different lets go tol the archives. My mother went to the War Memorial Building where the archives was in a little bitty, the public part was not any rigor than the front part of the room here. The little blue haired ladies looking at microfilm on the old machines. We still have one of the old machines in the reading room for you to look at. And again, im in this little room and i asked to see you have any information on this and here i was seventh grader and they set a subject file would be goon for you. And they brought up files of information on eudora and of course i wrote this wonderful papal and i was thrilled what got my eye though was these little ladies werematn pulling these gray boxes. Having someone go downstairs in the basement and they were coming out with these boxes of who knows what. Bin i wanted to know what. Ed to kn so that was it. I guess my love of history goes back to some of my earliest reading. I was a fan of going to the Meridian Public Library andy sitting on the floor and mostly looking at pictures i have to admit. But as i got a little older ii o began reading folks like bruce catton and his wonderful book, this Hallowed Ground and it captured my imagination. It went from there. But also personal connections. For for me i have always been interested in that other war, that other great war. But part of that is because of people like my grandmother who was new someone who had been wounded at the battle of shiloh. That just really brought it home for me that this was something i was interested in and im so glad to have the opportunity to do it now for a living. I it is great. Ething i to come early where youre someone who didnt come late . Perhaps perhaps real early. I developed an interest in political history well into, in my early teens, but maybe for this particular project one other inspiring teacher was a man named doctor tony edmonds at ball State University who may or may not of had a terrible onma successful date with one of senator eastlands daughters. At any rate he mentioned that to students, they laughed at it now we have determined that date may never have taken place but maybe a guy, a story to tell the story of a bad day based upon a misguided prank. Good afternoon. I have a question to anyone on the panel. And it is a pressing question i have always wondered about. I also have familiarized myself with the archives and basicallyb the main reason why i have gone to the archives was to try to in some way find some type of lineage, learn about my lineage. I want to know as historian, those of you in the panel, what research have you all do in terms of trying to find the direct lineage of africanamericans you know what the history of everybody be a mixed and being dispersed to this place in that place. But in terms of where africanamericans who were enslaved, where they are from in terms of africa whee
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