Sherita Johnson’s new book has been released: Mixing: Race, Higher Education, and the Case of Clyde Kennard (UP Mississippi, 2026).

Here is Sherita’s gloss on it:

It’s an interdisciplinary analysis of the life and legacy of Clyde Kennard. The Freedom50 Research Group (I formed in 2015) collaborated on this edited volume. I particularly examine a series of essays (written as open letters) by Kennard about desegregation that were published in The Hattiesburg American during the 1950s. Here’s a brief blurb for the book to include in the departmental newsletter:

Clyde Kennard (1927–1963) was a determined and soft-spoken man whose fight to enroll at Mississippi Southern College (now the University of Southern Mississippi) in the 1950s highlighted the broader struggle for racial equality in education. Kennard’s efforts to desegregate higher education remain lesser known (than James Meredith at the University of Mississippi, for instance), but Kennard’s impact on the movement for educational equality is undeniable. His courageous stand against segregation subjected him to false arrests, imprisonment, and ultimately, his untimely death in 1963 without completing his degree. However, Kennard’s legacy persists as a symbol of the broader civil rights struggle, emphasizing the necessity of grassroots action in advancing justice.