An American insurrection : the battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962

Is abridged in

Canonical title

An American insurrection : the battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962

Original publication date

2001-10

People/Characters

James Meredith

Important places

Oxford, Mississippi, USA

Epigraph

I was creating images then that were designed for forty years in the future.
--James Meredith

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This story in years to come, in generations to come, is going to be really a story that will be impossible to believe.
--Verner Holmes

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The past is never dead. It's not even past.
--William Faulkner

Dedication

to Naomi; to my father, William Doyle, First Sergeant, U.S.Army 813th Military Police Company, 1942-1945 Australia and New Guinea; and to Marilou, Kate, and Joe

First words

Little Rock, Arkansas, September 8, 1957, 8:50 A.M.
A shy fifteen-year-old girl wearing bobby sox, ballet slippers, and a crisp black-and-white cotton dress stepped off a bus and walked toward Central High School carrying ... (show all)a set of school books.

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Prologue: May 22, 1865, 9:00 A.M.: the Governor's Office, State Capitol, Jackson, Mississippi.
Thirty-three days after the surrender of the armed forces of the Confederate States of America at Appomattox, a platoon of bl... (show all)ack Union troops with fixed bayonets stormed through the ruined streets of Jackson and onto the grounds of the Mississippi State Capitol building.

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)But if you look very closely, and if you know where to look, you can still see bullet marks in the great columns of the Lyceum, from guns fired almost forty years ago, by ghosts from the dead Confederate legions.

Original language

English