In the years following Brown v. Board of Education, countless Black
citizens endured violent resistance and even death while fighting for
their constitutional rights. One of those citizens, Clyde Kennard
(1927-1963), a Korean War veteran and civil rights leader from
Hattiesburg, Mississippi, attempted repeatedly to enroll at the
all-white Mississippi Southern College--now the University of Southern
Mississippi--in the late 1950s.
In A Slow, Calculated Lynching: The Story of Clyde Kennard, Devery S.
Anderson tells the story of a man who paid the ultimate price for trying
to attend a white college during Jim Crow. Rather than facing
conventional vigilantes, he stood opposed to the governor, the
Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, and other high-ranking
entities willing to stop at nothing to deny his dreams. In this
comprehensive and extensively researched biography, Anderson examines
the relentless subterfuge against Kennard, including the cruelly
successful attempts to frame him--once for a misdemeanor and then for a
felony. This second conviction resulted in a sentence of seven years
hard labor at Mississippi State Penitentiary, forever disqualifying him
from attending a state-sponsored school. While imprisoned, he developed
cancer, was denied care, then sadly died six months after the governor
commuted his sentence. In this prolonged lynching, Clyde Kennard was
robbed of his ambitions and ultimately his life, but his final days and
legacy reject the notion that he was powerless.
Anderson highlights the resolve of friends and fellow activists to
posthumously restore his name. Those who fought against him, and later
for him, link a story of betrayal and redemption, chronicling the worst
and best in southern race relations. The redemption was not only a
symbolic one for Kennard but proved healing for the entire state. He was
gone, but countless others still benefit from Kennard's legacy and the
biracial, bipartisan effort he inspired.
