Joe T. Patterson and the White South's Dilemma: Evolving Resistance to Black Advancement
Joe T. Patterson and the White South's Dilemma: Evolving Resistance to Black Advancement
Cite
Abstract
As Mississippi's attorney general from 1956 to 1969, Joe T. Patterson led the legal defense for Jim Crow in the state. He was inaugurated for his first term two months before the launch of the Sovereignty Commission. Patterson supported the organization's mission from the start and served as an ex-officio leader on its board for the rest of his life. He was also a card-carrying member of the segregationist Citizens' Council. Few ever doubted his Jim Crow credentials. That is until September 1962 and the integration of the University of Mississippi by James Meredith. Patterson stepped out of his entrenchment by defying a circle of white power brokers, but only to a point. His seeming acquiescence came at the height of the biggest crisis for Mississippi's racist order. Yet even after the U.S. Supreme Court decreed that Meredith must enter the university, Patterson opposed any further desegregation and despised the federal intervention. Still he faced a dilemma that confronted all white southerners: how to maintain an artificially elevated position for whites in southern society without resorting to violence or intimidation. Once the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Meredith v. Fair, the state attorney general walked a strategic tightrope, looking to temper the ruling's impact without inciting the mob and without retreating any further. Patterson and others sought pragmatic answers to the dilemma of white southerners, to offer a more durable version of white power.
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Front Matter
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Introduction
The Dilemma of the White South
Robert E. Luckett
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1
Lessons in Practical Segregation
Robert E. Luckett
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2
Challenges for the Jim Crow Hierarchy
Robert E. Luckett
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3
Fissures in the Segregationist Fold
Robert E. Luckett
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4
White Paranoia and Black Informants
Robert E. Luckett
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5
Black Advancement and Federal Intervention
Robert E. Luckett
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6
Braying Jackasses
Robert E. Luckett
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7
Would-Be Ruthless Dictators
Robert E. Luckett
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8
Freedom Summer
Robert E. Luckett
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9
Practical Racism
Robert E. Luckett
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10
School Desegregation and Freedom of Choice
Robert E. Luckett
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Conclusion
The Segregationist’s Adjustment
Robert E. Luckett
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End Matter
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