Word: lott
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Both race and class became big issues, however, during Lott's years at Ole Miss, which had no black students when he arrived in 1959. There the student yearbook invoked the charms of "darkies singing softly in the moonlight" along the levee. Social life and student politics were dominated by the big fraternities and sororities, where Lott encountered sons and daughters of Delta planters who looked down not only on blacks but also on members of the smaller Greek organizations and the "independent" students who either couldn't get accepted into a fraternity or sorority or couldn't afford...
...Lott felt a kinship with members of the lower social orders at Ole Miss but characteristically did not express it by confronting the snobs and bigots. Instead he turned it to his political advantage. Even as he ingratiated himself with the big men and women on campus, Lott in his political campaigns lavished attention on the little people, stressing his roots as the son of a shipyard worker. Soon he had built himself another snaggletoothed majority, which helped win him election as president of the interfraternity council and as a cheerleader...
...During Lott's senior year at Ole Miss, on Sept. 30, 1962, armed U.S. marshals moved to install Air Force veteran James Meredith as its first black student. They were met by rock- and rifle-wielding students and other rowdies. In the violence that ensued, two were killed, scores injured and 150 arrested. A small band of white students publicly called for peaceful integration of the campus, but Lott was not among them. Nor was he among the rioters. He concentrated on keeping his frat brothers away from the violence, and he succeeded. "Yes, you could say that I favored...
After earning a B.A. in public administration, Lott enrolled in the Ole Miss law school. By now his parents were separated and unable to help him financially. He had saved some money from summer jobs at a root-beer stand in Pascagoula and at the local hospital as a janitor mopping rooms. He took out federal student loans. And he secured paid jobs with the university, first as a recruiter and later as a fund raiser for the alumni association, where he expanded his political network...
...Vietnam War was heating up, but Lott, like other students, enjoyed an exemption until his graduation from law school in 1967. By then he had married Tricia Thompson of Pascagoula and, according to Selective Service records, secured a "hardship" exemption because of the impending birth of their first child Chet. Lott says he was so focused on his studies and student political matters, such as getting soda machines in the dorms, that he didn't think much about either protesting the war or volunteering for it. Vietnam, like civil rights, was another uncomfortable subject to be ducked...