By Linda Chen
Senior Staff Writer
Civil Rights leader Will Campbell's lecture on "Looking Back: Religion at Ole Miss" in the Student Union Ballroom Thursday night was well-received by those in attendance.
The program began with a performance of holy songs by the University Gospel Choir, and many said they were inspired by the singing voices. Campbell's presentation, part of the university's Sesquicentennial celebration, attracted not only people of his age but also young adults.
"Campbell is a 'will' to everyone, making our hearts and our relations whole," said former International Students Programs' Director Nolan Shepherd. "Religion always plays a large role at the university."
His presentation was a recollection of Campbell's memories, especially from the 1950s when he was the University's first director of religious life. It was a time of "hot water" and he was almost in dangerous situations because he presented ideas of racial relations.
Campbell said, "I loved being in the hot water and wanted to preserve freedom."
The longtime defender of civil rights and civil liberties himself, Mississippi-born Campbell was a race-relations troubleshooter in the South for the National Council of Churches in the 1950s, and the leader of the biracial Committee of Southern Churchmen in the 1960s.
"God didn't create race, but human beings created it," he said, and the audience applauded.
But at that time, Campbell had been asked by former Chancellor J.D. Williams not to mention anything about race. It was a very sensitive topic across the nation and the South especially.
He argued to Williams, "How do you teach history, music ... to students. You just have to discuss it."
Campbell said Williams asked him, "What would you have done if you were in my position? My responsibility was to the university. "Campbell responded, "So was I."
Campbell believes in the idea that all people are literally God's children whether black or white.
Though the then F.B.I. officials had investigated him several times, Campbell insisted on his own ideology.
The past three decades Campbell has authored books such as "Brother to a Dragonfly (a remembrance)," a National Book Award finalist, and "The Glad River,"winner of first prize for fiction of Friends of American Writers.
Now Campbell, with three children and four grandchildren, walks with a cane. He said he feels very honored being invited to the university.