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We Believed We Were Immortal

August 1, 2017 By

We Believed We Were Immortal

On the 55th anniversary of the 1962 crisis at Ole Miss, author Kathleen Wickham traces the footsteps of twelve American journalists and examines the unsolved murder of Paul Guihard, a French reporter, the only journalist killed during the civil rights movement. In We Believed We Were Immortal: Twelve Reporters Who Covered the 1962 Integration Crisis at Ole Miss, Wickham details the challenges faced by these journalists and how they managed to overcome beatings, snipers, and a rogue governor to file the news reports reprinted here.

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About the Book

On the 55th anniversary of the 1962 crisis at Ole Miss, author Kathleen Wickham traces the footsteps of twelve American journalists and examines the unsolved murder of Paul Guihard, a French reporter, the only journalist killed during the civil rights movement. In We Believed We Were Immortal: Twelve Reporters Who Covered the 1962 Integration Crisis at Ole Miss, Wickham details the challenges faced by these journalists and how they managed to overcome beatings, snipers, and a rogue governor to file the news reports reprinted here.

As James Meredith observes, the strength of the book is “the reporters Wickham chose to write about.” Those reporters are Claude Sitton of The New York Times; Karl Fleming, of Newsweek; Sidna Brower, Daily Mississippian student editor, Moses Newson, of the Baltimore Afro-American, CBS reporter Dan Rather, Richard Valeriani of NBC, Michael Dorman of Newsday, freelance photographer Flip Schulke, Fred Powledge of the Atlanta Journal/Constitution, Texas videographer Gordon Yoder, Dorothy Gilliam of The Washington Post, and Neal Gregory of the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

“Here are flesh-and-blood reporters,” writes Jerry Mitchell of the Clarion-Ledger, “whose dispatches from the war-torn University of Mississippi campus remind us what real journalism looks like and why we need it now more than ever.”

Details
Author: Kathleen Wickham
ISBN: 9780916242831
List Price: 29.95
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Kathleen Wickham

Kathleen W. Wickham is a professor of journalism in the School of Journalism & New Media at the University of Mississippi. Her edited book, James Meredith: Breaking the Barrier, served as the commemorative book for the university’s 60th anniversary events marking Meredith’s integration of the university. She is also the author of We Believed We Were Immortal: Twelve Reporters Who Covered the 1962 Integration Crisis at Ole Miss (2017). In 2022 she was awarded the Ronald T. and Gayla D. Farrar Award in Media & Civil Rights History, for the publication of “The Magnifying Effect of Television News: Civil Rights Coverage and Eyes on the Prize,” published in American Journalism. Her significant campus projects included having the UM campus named a national historic site in journalism by  the Society of Professional Journalists in honor of the 300-plus reporters who covered Meredith’s enrollment and the dedication of a memorial bench honoring Agence France-Press reporter Paul Guihard, killed during the subsequent riot. Prior to entering academia, Dr. Wickham worked as a reporter for 10 years in her native New Jersey, ending her reporting career as the Atlantic City bureau chief for the Newark Star-Ledger. For the last 15 years she has served as a judge for the National Headliner Journalism Awards, one of the nation’s oldest journalist contests with categories across all media platforms.

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Founded in 1975, Yoknapatawpha Press is a southern regional press established by co-publishers, Lawrence Wells and the late Dean Faulkner Wells. Most of the press's projects are generated in-house.The company is named for William Faulkner's fictional county, Yoknapatawpha, from the Chickasaw word meaning "gentle water."

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