Dr. Benjamin Graves inherited the wind when he became the seventh president of Millsaps College in 1965.
Graves, a native of Jones County, graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1942. He received a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard and a PhD. from LSU. He was an associate professor at the University of Virginia, and taught at LSU before coming to Millsaps.
He vacillated over the Board’s offer of the presidency; he was well aware that his predecessor, Homer Ellis Finger Jr., had been subjected to criticism from hard-line segregationists for his moderate views. But once decided, Graves took the helm firmly in hand.
Graves arrived at the College in February. At a meeting of the Millsaps College Board of Trustees that month, it was unanimously decided by the governing body to consider all qualified applicants for enrollment at the College. This news made headlines: Millsaps had become the first institution of higher learning in the Mississippi to voluntarily lower its racial barriers.
According to the statement issued by the Board of Trustees, the College stood to lose approximately $200,000 if it did not comply with the Civil Rights Act. The statementstressed that there would be no relaxation of scholastic qualifications, and said that the college would oppose the efforts of any extremist persons or groups “to use the campus, its facilities, its faculty or its students as vehicles for activities unrelated or detrimental to the educational purpose of the College.”
Though the Board had made its position clear, it was up to Graves to convince supporters and alumni of the College that this transition was implemented to move Millsaps forward as a superior institution of higher learning. Immediately after the Board’s announcement, he mailed the Board’s statement and a personal letter to the alumni:
“Unless we can continue to receive your support as alumni, the support of the Methodist Church and our other friends, this institution could sink into oblivion. On the other hand, if we make a successful adjustment, which we believe is going to be relatively easy, we can make this college one of the finest liberal arts institutions in the United States.”
Although some faculty and Board members felt that the loss of federal funds was the motivating factor in the Board’s decision, the Millsaps Associates, countless alumni, and both conferences of the Methodist Church in Mississippi gave Millsaps their support.
Millsaps enrolled its first black student on June 8, 1965.
1⁄4 cup mung peas 1⁄4 cup azuki peas 1⁄4 cup lentils and/or split peas Cranberry beans – enough to cover bottom of kettle 1⁄2 bunch celery 1 lb. carrots 4 large yellow onions. 1 bunch bok choy 1⁄2 cup chard 1 medium potato Any vegetable to taste – solid ones first, leafy ones last 1 tomato 4 lb. sliced mushrooms 2 cubes of beef or chicken bouillon 1-2 cups red wine (any cheap, dry red goofy) Grated Parmesan cheese
Use a large kettle (can be picked up for about a quarter at most thrift shops) of 1 gallon or more capacity. Put enough water in the kettle to reach 2-3 inches up the sides. Pour in cranberry beans and other beans and peas, I sliced onion, and 3 stalks chopped celery, including leafy part. Season with liberal/radical amounts of salt, black pepper, celery salt, thyme, oregano. Season conservatively with bay leaves, allspice. Season fascistically with cayenne or curry powder. Season piggishly with chili powder.
1. Let this first part cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour. As it comes to boil, stir occasionally. 2. Now during the first hour of cooking, get away from the stove, sit down, roll one, have some tea, look out the window-relax. 3. After one hour begin adding vegetables-hard ones first-celery, carrots, potato, etc. 4. Put in leafy vegetables after the second hour. 5. Add mushrooms and tomato in the last 20 minutes, wine in the last 5 minutes. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese before serving.
This dish was one of our more popular choices at the Downtown Grill in Oxford. Though a Creole mustard is used here, the recipe works well with brown, stone-ground, or Dijon, but hell, use yellow if that’s all you have.
Oil and line a skillet or sheet pan with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 400. Stir together 1 cup finely chopped pecans with about a quarter cup finely-crushed saltines; you can use Panko instead, but for some reason I never seem to have any Panko.
Mix ¼ cup mustard with 1 large egg and ¼ cup water. Beat very well. Dredge the fish through the mustard mixture and coat the tops of the fillets in crushed pecans. Bake at 400 for about 10-15 minutes, depending upon the size of the fillet.
Usually served over biscuits, rice, or grits, Bill Neale among others recommends it with fried chicken. I serve it with pork chops. Good summer tomatoes singed, peeled, and drained are best, but home-canned tomatoes run a (very) close second. Bacon drippings are traditional. Neale’s recipe uses chicken stock or water, while Robert St. John’s calls for stock and milk. If using canned tomatoes, always add a little juice.
2 cups chopped tomatoes 3 tablespoons drippings or oil 2 tablespoons flour 1 1/4 cups water or stock 1 teaspoon sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon pepper
Add salt, pepper, and sugar to chopped tomatoes, and mix well. Heat bacon drippings in a skillet, add flour to make a lightly browned roux. Add tomatoes, water/broth, reduce heat, and thicken.
Trim fat from bone-in center cut chops, brush with (in this order) lime juice, corn oil, and freshly-ground black pepper. Marinate for about an hour, then broil or grill until well seared. Do not overcook. Serve with black beans and rice.
You asked me about the dog statue in the cemetery.
The statue is on the Guinn family plot. The Guinns are gone now, but they were well-known. Robert Guinn was an attorney who handled mostly small claims, but did well enough to own a house on President Street. He had a lovely wife, Rose, and a little girl, Doris.
All little girls should be pretty, but Doris wasn’t; her face fused improperly in the womb. There’s a name for the condition that I can’t remember, but it’s a cruel assessment of the divine to say that was God’s will, if you ask me. She was never photographed, but there was a portrait painted, and the artist aligned her features.
I saw it long ago; she had shining dark hair and a shy smile.
Doris in all other respects was a normal little girl; she had dolls and dresses and went to school with all the other little girls on the street. She also had a small dog, a spaniel of some kind that she adored. Her father had given her the puppy when she was five years old, so she named it after him. She called it Little Bob.
The dog would follow her to school, wait afternoons on the corner for her to come home, and was with her when she died at twelve. After that, Little Bob would go to the corner every afternoon and wait; at dark he’d go home until one day he couldn’t, and Bob Guinn went and got him, took him home.
Oh, there was a fuss about putting a memorial to a dog in the graveyard, much less his bones, but Robert Guinn took it to court and won, all said his finest hour before the bench.
So that’s Little Bob there with little Doris. He was a good dog.
“The Masters pimento cheese must be the most famous sandwich in all of sport,” wrote journalist Andy Bull, and it was Nick Rango’s recipe for “the pȃte of the South” that made the Masters gallery snack iconic.
The pimento cheese Nick Rango sold from his store, Woodruff Drug in Aiken, South Carolina, was so famous that in the 1960s, Masters organizers dropped the husband-and-wife catering team they’d hired since the 1940s to make way for Rango’s. For 45 years, Rango and his two children, Billy and Stella, whipped up massive quantities of pimento cheese by hand to take to Augusta every April.
More than 20 years ago, the Masters chose not to renew Rango’s contract; afterward he refused to share the recipe, taking its secret to his grave in 2015. Ted Godfrey, Rango’s replacement, claims that the missing ingredient in Rango’s pimento and cheese came to him in his sleep, as missing things tend to do.
By the next year’s tournament, Godfrey had filled Rango’s shoes, and patrons were none the wiser. But Godfrey also withheld his recipe after the Masters replaced him with in-house catering in 2013.
When Rango lost the contract, the change of hands hardly registered with patrons, but when Godfrey lost the contract, patrons noticed—and so did the press. Wright Thompson, a writer for ESPN noticed, and he was directed to Godfrey, who spilled the beans. Thompson’s 2013 exposé—later known as “Pimento-Gate”—revealed a Masters’ operation that tournament organizers would’ve preferred stay shut.
The episode, Thompson wrote, “left the Masters concessions staff trying—and failing, in a rare moment of fallibility—to recreate the same recipe that generations of golf fans have enjoyed.”
Admittedly, until the unlikely event that a Rango relative shares the original recipe, the best we have is an imitation of an approximation created by lifelong Masters patron and Augusta food blogger, Gina Dickson. Since her family moved to Augusta in the 1970s, Dickson estimates she’s been to no fewer than 25 Masters tournaments.
A deft cook who’d eaten countless pimento cheese sandwiches dating back to the Rango era, Dickson says it took her several hours to reverse-engineer the ingredients and consistency. I recommend you add a grain of salt.
Masters Pimento Cheese Sandwich
2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded 1 cup Monterey Jack cheese, shredded 4 ounces cream cheese ½ cup mayonnaise (“just don’t use Miracle Whip—that’s a Northern thing”) 4-ounce jar pimento peppers, drained and diced 1 tablespoon onion, very finely minced ¼ teaspoon garlic powder ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper ¼ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon black pepper
Combine all the ingredients in a medium bowl and mix until smooth and creamy. Refrigerate the mixture for at least an hour to allow it to become firm. Serve on white bread.
On March 3, 1966, a supercell thunderstorm developed over central Mississippi and produced a large tornado around 4:00 pm CST near the old Adams community in Hinds County, several miles south-southwest of Raymond.
Tracking generally to the northeast, the tornado moved through mostly rural areas, though several barns and a few homes were heavily damaged. Around 4:30 pm CST, the storm struck the southern limits of Jackson as an F4 or F5 tornado and leveled the Candlestick Park shopping center, which gave the tornado its name; cinder-blocks from the structure were scattered for long distances, a number of homes and businesses were destroyed, eyewitnesses reported pavement scouring and a few cars were tossed upwards of 0.5 mi (0.80 km). A brick church was destroyed with such force that it seemingly exploded. Once the storm moved through Jackson, it crossed the Pearl River and entered Rankin County, maintaining a nearly straight northeastward track through the county.
The tornado reached its maximum strength of F5 near the Leesburg community; multiple homes were swept away, large swaths of trees were leveled, pavement was scoured, and chicken houses were obliterated. In Neshoba County the storm began to weaken though not considerably as about a dozen more homes were destroyed before the system crossed into Alabama. The tornado finally dissipated near the city of Tuscaloosa around 7:45 p.m. CST. During the storm’s three-hour-and-forty-five-minute existence, it traveled roughly 202.5 mi (325.9 km), one of the longest paths ever recorded.
The Candlestick tornado touched down in what was in 1966 rural Rankin County, which like the area around Cooper Road is more heavily populated today. The tornado crossed Highway 25 (Lakeland Drive), and homes and businesses in the area around River Oaks, the north side of Jackson International Airport, Laurel Wood and Castlewoods lie in or very near where the tornado passed. The storm was also going through the Jackson metropolitan area between 430 pm and 5 pm, during the afternoon rush hour. In 1966, the interstate system was in the process of being constructed, but today the tornado would have been moving near the Stack just south of downtown Jackson where Interstates 20 and 55 converge. The tornado would have also been passing near or through the heavily trafficked areas along Highway 80, Flowood Drive and Lakeland Drive in Flowood.
The tornado’s story is told by Lorian Hemingway in her book, A World Turned Over: A Killer Tornado and the Lives It Changed Forever (Simon & Schuster; July, 2003). Hemingway, the granddaughter of novelist Ernest Hemingway (the daughter of Hemingway’s youngest son, Gregory, who left his wife and eight children when Lorian, the youngest, was 6 years old), moved to Jackson with her mother and stepfather into a house fifty yards north of Candlestick Shopping Center some years before the storm and moved to Nashville a month before the tornado hit, but in an interview after the book’s publication said the tornado, “… wouldn’t let me alone. I was haunted by it. I’ve been haunted by it all my life; I’ve been haunted by it in dreams. Each time I would go back to Mississippi — and I did not go back until I was well into my adult life — just by happenstance, just sitting around and hearing people talk, that tornado would come up. Not through any provocation of mine. I was amazed to see how much it had lived on and how much it had impacted people and become a part of their history.”
Hemingway’s book takes us back to Jackson with interviews of friends and neighbors. Included are the stories of Ronny Hannis, who was severely injured but helped dig survivors from the rubble, and Donna Durr, who was sitting in her Volkswagen with her child and was carried away in the air, only to be gently set down in a field. As you might expect, there are plenty of people who talk of God and their belief that there was a plan to nature’s savagery. Hemingway, who shares her contrary thoughts with the reader, brings a sophisticated yet sympathetic tone to the conversations, never passing judgment. In fact, she seems desperate to reconnect with the people who made Jackson seem like home for her. Her style is radically different from that of her grandfather’s; the story is told in fully-rounded sentences often brimming with emotion, and the descriptions of the area around Caney Creek along Cooper Road seem pastoral.
She tells the story in her own words and those of other survivors. Weaving childhood nostalgia with apocalyptic images of that world “rolled onto a spear, of the sky punctured at its heart,” Hemingway draws the reader into the nightmare, describing the moments preceding the tornado and the instant when everything was turned upside down. Hemingway describes how a familiar setting is suddenly turned into a morass of shattered concrete, twisted metal, splintered glass, mangled cars and broken bodies and how everyone walks and speaks “with reverence because what is heaving and bending at jagged turns all around them is a burial ground they must undo.”
Even after Candlestick Shopping Center was rebuilt, local residents stayed away. They couldn’t bear to remember.
In the introduction to her splendid Southern Hospitality Cookbook, Jackson epicure Winifred Cheney states that a signature dish is “a tribute in the field of cookery.”
Here Winifred misinforms. A signature dish is a recipe that identifies or is directly associated with an individual chef or a particular restaurant. For instance, one could say that blackened red fish is a signature dish of Paul Prudhomme’s, or oysters Rockefeller of Antoine’s.
Dishes named for people, either in honor of them—as in the Rockefeller—or made for them—as with Melba toast—don’t have a specific term of reference. They’re just recipes named for people, which are (predictably) created constantly. Winifred herself created two dishes in honor of her neighbor Eudora Welty: apples Eudora and squash Eudora.
Winifred is notorious for her tedious, voluptuous recipes with expensive ingredients. Such is the case with her apples Eudora, which she describes as “tart apples cooked in a delicious syrup, drained and baked in a rich custard, then filled with an apricot rum filling and topped with a dollop of whipped cream.” If that doesn’t wear you out just reading it, cooking it’s going to make you bedridden. Then she gives us squash Eudora, which is absolutely wonderful, and certainly somewhat less tedious.
Wash but do not peel two pounds tender yellow squash. Slice thinly and parboil with a pat of butter until tender. Drain and season with black pepper and salt to taste. Drain and wash a half pound (8 oz.) livers, cut into halves and sauté in butter with a bit of Worcestershire.
Drain livers and set aside to cool, then mix with squash, about a cup of chopped green onions, a teaspoon curry powder, one egg lightly beaten and a half cup grated Parmesan. Spoon mixture into a shallow casserole, dust top with more Parmesan, and bake at 350 until firm.
Winifred says that you can substitute a pound of lump crab meat for the livers. If you’ve got the bucks, go for it.
Toss fresh berries, drupes, or pomes (in this case, peaches and cherries) with sugar and macerate overnight.
Mix well one and a quarter cup of plain flour, two tablespoons sugar, and a teaspoon of salt. Cut in a stick of cold butter until mixture is grainy, then add enough cold water and additional flour as need to to make a stiff dough. Form into a ball and refrigerate for no less than an hour. Roll out to a 12” circle. (It doesn’t have to be perfect) and move onto a lightly oiled sheet pan.
Drain fruit and mound in the center of the dough, leaving a 2” edge. Fold the crust over the fruit, brush the dough with a mixture of melted butter mixed with a little dark brown sugar or molasses. Bake at 375 on a middle rack until crust is browned and fruit is bubbling.
