The story of seven white Mississippi sheriffs immortalized in a horrifically telling 1962 Life photograph — and of the racial intolerance that is their legacy.

In the infamous photograph, the sheriffs admire a billy club with obvious pleasure, preparing for the unrest they anticipate — and to which they clearly intend to contribute — in the wake of James Meredith's planned attempt to integrate the University of Mississippi. In telling the stories of these men, Paul Hendrickson gives us an extraordinarily revealing picture of racism in America at that moment. But his ultimate focus is on the part this legacy has played in the lives of their children and grandchildren.

One of them is a grandson — a high school dropout and four-time divorce — who achieves an elegant poignancy in his struggle against the racism to which he sometimes succumbs. One son serves as sheriff in the same town his father did. Another grandson patrols the border with Mexico — a policeman like the two generations before him — driven by the beliefs and deeds of his forebears. In all the portraits, we see how the racial bigotry bequeathed by the fathers has been transformed (there is real cause for hope) or remained untouched in the sons.

Sons of Mississippi is a profoundly important, revelatory work of still-evolving history.

?Paul Hendrickson's wonderful, richly textured book is a compelling reminder of how the civil rights movement changed, and did not change, the world of white and black sons and daughters of Mississippi. It holds out the hope that someday social justice will come but reminds us of how hard it is to overcome the burden of race in our society.? Mary Frances Berry, Chairperson, United States Commission on Civil Rights

?Written with ethereal elegance, Sons of Mississippi explores the pathos of racism in the American South with a rare lyrical intensity. Paul Hendrickson, a truly gifted journalist, journeyed into our Civil Rights past and found spoonfuls of redemption. A truly brilliant, evocative mediation which enlightens both the mind and the soul.? Douglas Brinkley, Director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies and Professor of History at the University of New Orleans

Includes bibliographical references (p. 315-329) and index.

They stand as unselfconscious as if the photograph were being taken at a church picnic and not during one of the pitched battles of the civil rights struggle. None of them knows that the image will appear in "Life magazine" or that it will become an icon of its era. The year is 1962, and these seven white Mississippi lawmen have gathered to stop James Meredith from integrating the University of Mississippi. One of them is swinging a billy club. <BR>More than thirty years later, award-winning journalist and author Paul Hendrickson sets out to discover who these men were, what happened to them after the photograph was taken, and how racist attitudes shaped the way they lived their lives. But his ultimate focus is on their children and grandchildren, and how the prejudice bequeathed by the fathers was transformed, or remained untouched, in the sons. Sons of Mississippi is a scalding yet redemptive work of social history, a book of eloquence and subtlely that tracks the movement of racism across three generations and bears witness to its ravages among both black and white Americans.