A Shaky Truce

Contents: About the Project | Share your story | Contributors | Acknowledgements | Funding

About the Project

The purpose of this project is to tell a story of local activism in Starkville, Mississippi. The fight for African American equal rights was not just relegated to Little Rock, Arkansas, Birmingham, Alabama, or Oxford, Mississippi, but was also fought on the streets and in the schools of every southern town during the Jim Crow era. Local individuals organized and protested against inequality and fought for integration, equal employment, and their right to vote. Their voices deserve to be heard, and their contributions to the larger civil rights narrative demands recognition.

“A Shaky Truce” highlights the civil rights struggles that took place in Starkville, Mississippi during the 1960s and 70s, a time when local African Americans demanded equality for all citizens. This website is designed to tell that story, providing information for scholars and tools for teachers interested in exploring these local conversations about race, equality, and human rights.

The content you see in this website is a result of ongoing research that began in 2014. Photos and documents are from Mississippi State University Libraries’ Special Collections, Digital Collections, or Circulating Collections; others come from other online archives; still other items were generously donated or shared by those we interviewed. If you are interested in further research on this or related topics, visit lib.msstate.edu for help getting started.

Share your story

The interviews on this website are first-hand accounts of events and movements during the 1960s - 1980s in Starkville, Mississippi, and the surrounding areas. If you have a story you’d like to share that relates to the events you see here, please reach out to us! Email us at starkvillecivilrights@gmail.com or visit our Facebook page.

Contributors

• Daaiyah (Dee) Heard
• Dr. Nick Timmerman
• Dr. Michael Murphy
• Dr. Kelli Nelson
• Christine Dunn
• Dr. Judith Ridner
• Hillary A. H. Richardson
• Nickoal Eichmann-Kalwara
• Lindsay Drane
• Simon Marcy
• Justin T. Whitney

Acknowledgements

• The Starkvillians and local civil rights heroes who participated in the oral history interviews
• Mississippi Humanities Council
• Institute of Museum and Library Services
• Dr. Alan Marcus, Professor, Department of History
• Frances Coleman, Dean of the MSU Libraries, Retired
• Dr. John Marszalek, Executive Director and Managing Editor, Ulysses S. Grant Association
• Pattye Archer, Coordinator of the Digital Media Center, MSU Libraries
• DeeDee Baldwin, History Research Librarian, MSU Libraries
• Dr. Paul Binford, Assistant Professor of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education
• Dr. Devon Brenner, Professor and Assistant to the Vice President for Education Initiatives, MSU Office of Research & Economic Development
• The President’s Commission for the Status of Minorities
• Neil Guilbeau, former Coordinator of University Archives & Mississippiana, MSU Libraries
• Paul Huddleston, Network and Systems Manager, MSU Libraries
• Rob McDougald, Instructional Media Specialist, MSU Libraries
• Jennifer McGillan, Coordinator of Manuscripts, MSU Libraries
• Randall McMillen, former Coordinator of the Digitization and Preservation Access Unit, MSU Libraries
• Gail Peyton, Associate Dean of Public Services, MSU Libraries, retired
• Amanda Powers, former Coordinator of Research Services, MSU Libraries
• Julie Shedd, Coordinator of Digital Initiatives and Web Services, MSU Libraries
• Jessica Perkins Smith, Manuscripts Librarian, MSU Libraries
• Fred Smith, Rare Books Coordinator, MSU Libraries

Funding

This project was funded in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Mississippi Library Commission, the Mississippi Humanities Council, and the Mississippi State University President’s Office.