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Delta State to present 14th annual Cranford Lecture Feb. 21

By February 9, 2011General

Dr. Charles Eagles Dr. Charles Eagles will present Delta State University’s 14th Annual Cranford Lecture entitled "Why Ole Miss?  Why 1962?" at 7 p.m., Monday, Feb. 21, in Jobe Hall Auditorium on the campus.

Dr. Eagles earned his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He currently serves as the William F. Winter Professor of History at the University of Mississippi, where he has been a faculty member since 1983.

Eagles specializes in the 20th century South, race relations, and civil rights.  He has written several books, including Jonathan Daniels and Race Relations: The Evolution of a Southern Liberal (1982), Outside Agitator:  Jon Daniels and the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama (1993), and The Price of Defiance:  James Meredith and the Integration of Ole Miss (2009).  

In 1993, Eagles won the Lillian Smith Book Prize in Non-Fiction for Outside Agitator.  In 2010, he won the same award for The Price of Defiance.  With that honor, he joined Alice Walker and Constance Curry as the only two-time winners of the prestigious award.  

The Price of Defiance has also earned the McLemore Prize from the Mississippi Historical Society for the best Mississippi history book in 2009, as well as the 2010 Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for nonfiction.

His lecture will discuss the short-term and long-term factors leading up to the 1962 riot at the University of Mississippi.   

He and his wife Brenda have two sons.

The lecture, established to commemorate the life and work of Delta State history professor Sammy O. Cranford, is free and open to the general public, as is the reception following.

For further information, contact the Delta State History Department at (662) 846-4170.