The second week in September saw an old man return to the University of Mississippi with a rosewood cane. Will Campbell was the first director of Religious Life on the campus from 1954 to 1956, and the Religious Activities Sesquicentennial Committee invited him back to the University for its 150th anniversary celebration. This visit coincided with the imminent publication of Campbell's book on Duncan Gray, And Also with You. Gray was the rector at St. Peter's Episcopal Church during the integration of the University, and his prointegrationist stance led him, in Campbell's words, to become "the most hated white man in Mississippi."

Campbell addressed a large audience for his official sesquicentennial lecture, as well as meeting with two undergraduate classes and a graduate seminar at the Center. His discussions focused on his involvement in the civil rights movement and his writings. He held a book signing session for his earlier publications. Reminiscence and publicity, however, seemed to be the last things on his mind, if not his schedule.

In his public engagements at the University, he made plain that his concern for the future motivated his work. He told a seminar group, "It's not enough just to study [the South] unless your basis of the study is to make something better." That desire to make something better was the simple motivation behind his attempts to subvert the University both in the 1950s and, it would seem, today. He explained his stance to the sesquicentennial audience in the Student Union: "All institutions are evil, self-perpetuating, self-loving."

Campbell, telling of his subversive activities while working at the University, described the anger of some students upon discovering him playing table tennis with the pastor of the Second Baptist Church, who was an African American. This led to threats of violence and the placing of human waste in the punch at a reception he hosted.

In the same speech Will Campbell reflected on the opposition to integration within the University. During his first year here, a poll of graduate students showed that 75 percent said they had no problems with the integration of the University. The following year, when officials took the same poll, the results were reversed. Why was this? "Because, men in seats of authority decided that this was not going to happen," he answered. In talking to the University officers he concluded that for them the institution had become their idol, whose defense was "I did what was best for the University." They had forgotten that they had higher loyalties, "to freedom, morality, and the Creator."

In looking back over the last 40 years, Campbell concluded that much had been done, but things were still not right at the University of Mississippi. He saw no easy answers but exhorted faculty and the student body to abandon complacency regarding the continuing inequalities. "I was born poor, poorer than most, but with the privilege of this incurable skin disease called whiteness. We all know who is guilty." In response to the question "What shall we do?" he urged everyone to join him in the answer, "I don't know, but we'll do something."

Though he had been away from the University for over 40 years he expressed his concern about the current wranglings over banners and heritage in the press. "Don't do that, you don't have to do that," was his admonishment, in the tones of a patient and loving grandfather.

Will Campbell has a very gentle and disarming manner, laced with wit, often directed at himself. He employs his age, feigning absent-mindedness ("I can't remember what your question was, but that's the answer") to cushion the impact of his bold statements.

Reverend Leroy Wadlington, pastor of the Second Missionary Baptist Church in Oxford and successor to Campbell's table tennis opponent, summed up the power in his words, saying, "He just told the truth."

Peter Slade