The Education of Mr. Mayfield: An Unusual Story of Social Change at Ole Miss
Magee, David. The Education of Mr. Mayfield: An Unusual Story of Social Change at Ole Miss.
Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 2009.
224 pp. $19.95 (hardcover)
Author David Magee is a native of Oxford, Mississippi, an alumnus of Ole Miss, a faculty son, and former city councilman, so one might wonder how he could write an unbiased historical biography addressing black and white relations in 1950s Oxford. Like many in Mississippi, Magee attended public schools only after they had been integrated; however, throughout his childhood, he witnessed adults’ residual tensions from decades of strained race relations, and he struggled to make sense of it all. The Education of Mr. Mayfield: An Unusual Story of Social Change at Ole Miss attempts to fill in the gaps to help people understand where earlier generations have been, how they lived, and the social change they worked to either create or prevent. Magee does this simply and elegantly by chronicling the life of M.B. Mayfield, a gifted black painter and sculptor who is secretly mentored by an art professor at the all-white University of Mississippi. From there, the story unfolds naturally as our protagonists’ friendship and working relationship develops, all while maneuvering the obstacles placed before them by the fact that they live in two very separate societies.
This book is an examination of the rigidly segregated, pre-civil rights era South, a time not frequently written about when chronicling the history of the University of Mississippi. The story begins a decade before anyone had ever heard of James Meredith, when the racial integration of Ole Miss was unconscionable to even the most liberal. Rather than a treatise on social change, as the title suggests, this book gives both black and white perspectives on segregation, both the overt and the unknowing cruelties, but also individuals’ acts of kindness, the quiet acknowledgments that their social system was unjust.
Using very illustrative and easy-to-read language, Magee accomplishes with words what Mayfield and Dr. Purser did with paint and sculpture: he poignantly illustrates rural Mississippi and its people as they were in the mid-twentieth century. Older readers, or those more familiar with Mississippi’s past, may find the book beleaguered by the amount of historical exposition included, but for others, the details help to contextualize the memoirs. For instance, one tends to forget that William Faulkner’s Nobel acceptance speech was, in Oxford, somewhat overshadowed by Ole Miss’ inaugural Dixie Week, complete with lavish parties and a parade celebrating one of the last living Confederate generals. Faulkner was informed that he won his prize – celebrating his candid, honest writing about life in the South – shortly after Alvin Krebs, then editor of the Daily Mississippian, survived threats of expulsion and even death after writing an editorial supporting the integration of Ole Miss. The way Magee juxtaposes these historical events illustrates the collision of Old South vs. New South sentiments, and somewhat mirrors the range of people’s treatment and support of African-Americans and their quest for equal rights.
Readers will delight in the eight pages of color plates, plus numerous black and white paintings and photographs interspersed throughout the book. Ole Miss alumna will appreciate the paintings and photos of landmarks that have since fallen by the wayside. Well-indexed, the author also provides exhaustive source material. This book is suitable for all high school libraries, public libraries, and Mississippi academic collections.
Missy Murphey
Reference Librarian
University of Mississippi
Entry Filed under: Book Reviews
Posted on: August 10th, 2010
