Bennett More Than a ‘First’ at Southern Mississippi - Higher Education

Bennett More Than a ‘First’ at Southern Mississippi - Higher Education: When Dr. Rodney Bennett was appointed president of the University of Southern Mississippi, he anticipated a bit more publicity than usual, but he says he “did not expect that we would still be talking about it from February to June.” As the first African-American president of a predominantly White university in Mississippi, Bennett has garnered significant national attention.

Not only does Bennett’s appointment highlight the state’s progress in race relations, it also leads to reflection on its dismal past. Southern Miss, like its higher-profile sister Ole Miss (University of Mississippi), took extreme measures to resist desegregation. In the 1950s, Clyde Kennard, the first Black applicant to Southern Miss, was sent to prison on bogus charges of stealing chicken feed to keep him from repeatedly seeking admission.

Recent racial incidents in Mississippi have reminded the nation of the state’s history of intolerance. Among them: an angry protest with racial epithets at Ole Miss after the re-election of President Barack Obama last November and, earlier this year, vigorous opposition from the mayor of Madison, Miss., to historically Black Jackson State University establishing a satellite campus in her town.