Then There Were None

Religious Emphasis Week at the University of Mississippi was rapidly approaching, and the committee on arrangements thought it had a solid list of guest speakers. Among them was the Rev. Alvin Kershaw of Oxford, Ohio, the Episcopal rector who won $32,000 on TV's The $64,000 Question a few months ago by answering questions on jazz.* A mild-mannered man, he seemed anything but controversial. No one could have suspected that he would set off the weird chain reaction of resignations and denunciations that hit Mississippi last week.

The reaction began when James Morrow Jr. of the state legislature wrote Chancellor J. D. Williams of the university that Kershaw had said he would give some of his winnings to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Morrow suggested that Williams "revoke the Reverend's invitation ever to appear in Mississippi." Later Kershaw wrote a letter to the student Mississippian conceding that he had indeed supported the N.A.A.C.P. because "I am convinced that the core of religious faith is love of God and neighbor." Though Kershaw's scheduled topic ("Religion and Drama") sounded innocent enough, Chancellor Williams told the rector that he had better stay home.

When the news broke, another out-of-state guest speaker announced that he too would stay home. Then, Professor Morton B. King Jr., chairman of the university's sociology department, resigned from the faculty. The university administration, he charged, is "no longer able to defend the freedom of thought, inquiry and speech which are essential for higher education to flourish." Two days later, at Mississippi State College, Political Scientist William Buchanan decided to resign too. The state house of representatives denounced the two professors as "misguided reformers," urged the heads of all state-supported colleges to "use every effort to prevent subversive influences from infiltrating into our institutions." Governor James P. Coleman agreed. "If a man feels a team is unworthy," he said of the professors, "he ought to get off the team." Other men were also getting off the team. By last week, all five out-of-state speakers had said they would not show up for the university's Religious Emphasis Week.

With their speakers' slate wiped clean, the committee on arrangements decided to replace its guests with five Oxford, Miss, clergymen. After all. wrote Negro-baiting Editor Fred Sullens of the Jackson Daily News, "we may feel reasonably sure that [local clergymen] will not be spewing poison into the minds of our young people." The five untainted ones, however, respectfully declined. At week's end the committee on arrangements decided to turn Religious Emphasis Week into three days of meditation and prayer--without any clergymen around who might have dangerous ideas.

* His winning question: to identify the first example of "scat" singing (Heebie Jeebies), the recording group (Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five) and all the players (Armstrong on the cornet, Kid Ory on the trombone, Johnny Dodds on the clarinet, John St. Cyr on the banjo, Mrs. Armstrong at the piano).

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