From Publishers Weekly
"Nothing is ever escaped," is the woeful reminder Hendrickson imparts in this magisterial group biography-cum-social history, a powerful, unsettling, and beautifully told account of Mississippi's still painful past. Hendrickson, author of the searching Robert McNamara chronicle The Living and the Dead (an NBA finalist), sets out to profile seven Mississippi sheriffs photographed while one of their number postures with a billy club just before the 1962 riots against the integration of the University of Mississippi at Oxford ("Ole Miss"). The picture, shot by freelance photographer Charlie Moore, was published in Life magazine soon after, and it captured Hendrickson's imagination when he came upon it decades later. Chapter by chapter, Hendrickson reconstructs the everyday existences of the seven sheriffs, concentrating on the time of the photo, but taking his subjects through to their deaths. None are now living, but Hendrickson interviewed former Natchez sheriff John Ed Cothram in the early '90s, and the Cothram chapters comprise a paradigmatically subtle and eerie portrait of the intelligence and banality of evil, and how it destroys individuals. The number of telling quotes, interviews with friends and family, primary and secondary sources, allusions to art and history, and gut reactions Hendrickson offers are what really make the book. He begins with a wrenching retelling of the Emmett Till lynching-seven years before James Meredith fought for and finally won admission to Ole Miss, a bloody story Hendrickson also recounts (in addition to a fascinating recent interview with Meredith himself). The book's final third tries to get at the legacy of Mississippi's particular brand of segregation-the whites and blacks Hendrickson interviews throughout articulate it masterfully-by profiling the children of the men in the photo and of Meredith, with sad and inconclusive results. While Hendrickson can be intrusive in telling readers how to interpret his subjects, he repeatedly comes up with electric interview material, and deftly places these men within the defining events of their times, when "a 100-year-old way of life was cracking beneath them."Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
To help us understand racism in America, former Washington Post journalist Hendrickson tells the story of the seven white Mississippi sheriffs shown admiring a billy club in a famed 1962 photograph. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
The author was on the staff of the Washington Post for 23 years, and his journalistic experience stood him in good stead in preparing this fascinating, creative, and deeply resonant look at the civil rights struggle in the U.S. from the perspective of white opposition. Hendrickson uses as his metaphor, as his jumping-off point, a photograph that appeared in Life magazine in 1962, in which seven white sheriffs, standing in a frightening group, are preparing for the violence anticipated on the morrow, when James Meredith would integrate the University of Mississippi. Certainly, these men did not congregate there out of support for racial integration. The photograph struck Hendrickson, when he found it, as an indelible image of the racism of the times. He looked the men up and talked to them, their sons, and a grandson to learn whether the racism the seven sheriffs represented had been carried, like a gene, to their descendants. In his words, "Where did the hatred and the sorrow go that flowed out of the moment?" Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
“A beautiful, poetic book about an ugly time in America's South. . . . Meticulously researched, exquisitely written and piercingly poignant.” -– Los Angeles Times

“Profound. . . . Shattering [the] silence was Hendrickson’s goal. Filling it with a meanful, searching record is his tremendous accomplishment.” —Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Hendrickson is a talented writer, with an eye for the telling detail and a comfortable voice that is both personal and lyrical in the style of a James Agee or W. J. Cash.” —Washington Post Book World

“Ambitious. . . . Vivid. . . . Treats the civil rights revolution and resistance not as dusty history but as the best and worst of American culture.” —USA Today



Review
?A beautiful, poetic book about an ugly time in America's South. . . . Meticulously researched, exquisitely written and piercingly poignant.? -? Los Angeles Times

?Profound. . . . Shattering [the] silence was Hendrickson?s goal. Filling it with a meanful, searching record is his tremendous accomplishment.? ?Atlanta Journal-Constitution

?Hendrickson is a talented writer, with an eye for the telling detail and a comfortable voice that is both personal and lyrical in the style of a James Agee or W. J. Cash.? ?Washington Post Book World

?Ambitious. . . . Vivid. . . . Treats the civil rights revolution and resistance not as dusty history but as the best and worst of American culture.? ?USA Today

ANNOTATION

Winner of the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Sons of Mississippi recounts the story of seven white Mississippi lawmen depicted in a horrifically telling 1962 Life magazine photograph - and of the racial intolerance that is their legacy." "In that photograph, which appears on the front of this jacket, the lawmen (six sheriffs and a deputy sheriff) admire a billy club with obvious pleasure, preparing for the unrest they anticipate - and to which they clearly intend to contribute - in the wake of James Meredith's planned attempt to integrate the University of Mississippi. In finding the stories of these men, Paul Hendrickson gives us an extraordinarily revealing picture of racism in America at that moment. But his ultimate focus is on the part this legacy has played in the lives of their children and grandchildren." One of them is a grandson - a high school dropout and many times married - who achieves an elegant poignancy in his struggle against the racism to which he sometimes succumbs. One son is a sheriff, as his father was - and in the same town. Another grandson patrols the U.S. border with Mexico - a law enforcement officer like the two generations before him - driven by the beliefs and deeds of his forebears. In all the portraits, we see how the prejudice bequeathed by the fathers has been transformed, or remained untouched, in the sons.

FROM THE CRITICS

The Los Angeles Times

This, then, is a beautiful, poetic book about an ugly time in America's South. It's been a long time since I have been so moved. — Karl Fleming

The Washington Post

Sons of Mississippi isn't really about the figures in the photograph, Hendrickson insists. "It's about what's deeply connected but is off the page … It's about what has come down from this photograph." Fair enough, but his book is rooted in that September afternoon in 1962; by the time Hendrickson took up the story, only former sheriffs Billy Ferrell and John Ed Cothran were still alive to talk about it. As the book unfolds, the reader is pulled across the confusing terrain of the past: back through the men's childhoods and then forward through their lives and those of their children and grandchildren. — Dan T. Carter

Publishers Weekly

"Nothing is ever escaped," is the woeful reminder Hendrickson imparts in this magisterial group biography-cum-social history, a powerful, unsettling, and beautifully told account of Mississippi's still painful past. Hendrickson, author of the searching Robert McNamara chronicle The Living and the Dead (an NBA finalist), sets out to profile seven Mississippi sheriffs photographed while one of their number postures with a billy club just before the 1962 riots against the integration of the University of Mississippi at Oxford ("Ole Miss"). The picture, shot by freelance photographer Charlie Moore, was published in Life magazine soon after, and it captured Hendrickson's imagination when he came upon it decades later. Chapter by chapter, Hendrickson reconstructs the everyday existences of the seven sheriffs, concentrating on the time of the photo, but taking his subjects through to their deaths. None are now living, but Hendrickson interviewed former Natchez sheriff John Ed Cothram in the early '90s, and the Cothram chapters comprise a paradigmatically subtle and eerie portrait of the intelligence and banality of evil, and how it destroys individuals. The number of telling quotes, interviews with friends and family, primary and secondary sources, allusions to art and history, and gut reactions Hendrickson offers are what really make the book. He begins with a wrenching retelling of the Emmett Till lynching-seven years before James Meredith fought for and finally won admission to Ole Miss, a bloody story Hendrickson also recounts (in addition to a fascinating recent interview with Meredith himself). The book's final third tries to get at the legacy of Mississippi's particular brand of segregation-the whites and blacks Hendrickson interviews throughout articulate it masterfully-by profiling the children of the men in the photo and of Meredith, with sad and inconclusive results. While Hendrickson can be intrusive in telling readers how to interpret his subjects, he repeatedly comes up with electric interview material, and deftly places these men within the defining events of their times, when "a 100-year-old way of life was cracking beneath them." (Mar. 24) Forecast: Fallout from Trent Lott's remarks have refocused national attention on Mississippi, evidenced by a spate of recent New York Times articles on the state of the State. This hybrid "whiteness studies" style analysis offers some answers to the "whys" of Lott's remarks, and its 50,000 copy first printing anticipates a stint on the bestseller list, and major award nominations. Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

KLIATT - Nola Theiss

By focusing on a famous photo of seven Southern sheriffs during the integration of the University of Mississippi in 1962, Hendrickson captures what Southern life was like during that era. People too young to remember and those who experienced it from near or far will come away with a much more complete understanding of what made these men tick and the ramifications of the act of one brave young man, James Meredith, on the modern history of America. Hendrickson is a noted journalist, author and professor, who is able to extrapolate from the stories of those involved a sense of what it was like to live in those times, as a sheriff, an African American, a Southerner and an American. He also shows how the lives of our fathers affect the lives of their children, even in adulthood. The book has an excellent "bibliographical essay," which explains how the author acquired his information, and a complete index. The writing is compelling, but the typeface is small and a little difficult to read. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2003, Random House, Vintage, 343p. illus. bibliog. index., Ages 15 to adult.

Library Journal