The struggle for civil rights, indeed human rights, occurs on a dizzying number of levels. Both resistance and oppression draw upon the human imagination, upon various individual experiences, and upon a particular moment for their formation. The task of the discipline of history in this case is to convey the personal, intellectual, emotional, family, and institutional histories implicit in events without shriveling the final product up into lists and dates or winner-take-all pronouncements. Clarice T. Campbell offers a detailed look at the workings of a spry human imagination amid the various histories of the 1960s through the personal and professional letters collected in Civil Rights Chronicle. When her husband died in 1959, Campbell, a native of Pasadena, California, moved to teach at Rust College, a historically black college in Holly Springs, Mississippi. In 1965 she entered the University of Mississippi for a Ph.D. in history and later returned to Rust as chair of the history department.

Civil Rights Chronicle presents Campbell's thoughts, hopes, and experiences as she worked within and resisted the Jim Crow laws of her adopted home. The letters collected in this volume portray a witty and strong woman who clearly presented a curious figure to the Mississippi of the 1960s. "I didn't want to be an agitator," she said, "but, a white, older woman could get respect when younger people couldn't. No white Southerner wants to be rude to a white, older woman." And so with politeness and humor Campbell butted heads with likes of restaurant managers as well as those of future lieutenant governors.

In a warm preface to the book, historian John Dittmer, who first met Campbell in 1968, writes: A caring yet no-nonsense teacher, [Campbell] chronicles her failures with students as well as the success stories, and provides valuable insights into the precarious position of Southern black colleges, especially when a school's students and faculty become active in the civil rights movement. Civil Rights Chronicle also presents the story of one person who was present neither at Selma nor the march on Washington, but who struggled with some day to day decisions at this convoluted period of history.

William Thomas, Southern Studies Graduate Student