William David McCain

William David McCain (March 29, 1907 – September 5, 1993) was an American educator, archivist and college president. He was a recognized leader of the Mississippi political establishment and a leader in its struggle in the 1950s and 1960s to maintain racial segregationism and what he considered the "southern way of life". He served as Mississippi state archivist, a Major General in the Mississippi National Guard, a longtime leader and promoter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and as the fifth president and a major architect of Mississippi Southern College (now the University of Southern Mississippi).

McCain married the former Minnie Leicester Lenz on October 3, 1931, and they were parents of three children: William D., Jr., John W., and Patricia.

Education McCain attended Delta State University (then College), received an MA from The University of Mississippi, a Ph.D. from Duke, and an honorary Doctor of Letters from Mississippi College.

Early career as archivist After teaching at several junior colleges and both Ole Miss and Mississippi State University (then College), he became director of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, serving from 1938 to 1955.

From the late 1930s onward he enjoyed a growing reputation as an archivist and regional historian. He was a founding member of the Society of American Archivists and wrote several genealogical volumes, including histories of the McCain, Fox, Shaw, and Vance families.

Sons of Confederate Veterans McCain re-founded the dormant Sons of Confederate Veterans organization and researched Confederate history. Today the SCV honors him in various ways. Founded in 1896, the Sons of Confederate Veterans had its first period of growth and success around and after 1900. By the late 1930s it was dying. When McCain took it over and re-founded it in 1953, it was down to 30 chapters, 1,000 members and $1,053 in assets.

After 1953, McCain threw himself into developing the moribund organization into an influential force in Mississippi and Southern politics, and a valuable personal political power base. He revived the group's abandoned publication, the Confederate Veteran, and began productive membership drives. Over the years of his stewardship from 1953 to the late 1980s membership rose to almost 20,000. He also obtained the current national headquarters facility in Columbia, TN, and a comfortable financial cushion.

The library at the national headquarters in Columbia, TN, is named is his honor, and the grounds are referred to as "MAJ GEN WILLIAM D MCCAIN HQ CAMP".

Between 1951-1953 McCain served as the eighth president of the Society of American Archivists.

Split in organization A split in the Sons of Confederate Veterans led to some Sons of Confederate Veterans local groups defining themselves as being "Dr. William D. McCain Old School" camps to indicate rejection of more racist and neo-Confederate nationalist elements. As late as 1991 they featured McCain in a recruiting video along with then Republican Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi.

University status In the early 1960s he obtained the support of fellow segregationist Governor Ross Barnett to elevate MSC to university status. This action paved the way for Mississippi Southern College to become a university, and on February 27, 1962, the school was officially renamed The University of Southern Mississippi (USM).thumb President McCain with Gov. Ross Barnett and Lt. Gov. Paul B. Johnson at signing of bill granting university status.

Promoter of segregation He was a prominent and active supporter of the state political establishment's racial policies. McCain was a founder and led it as an authoritarian general leading his troops for decades.

Clyde Kennard When Clyde Kennard, a black Korean War veteran attempted to enroll at Mississippi Southern in the late 1950s, McCain made major efforts with local black leaders, the state political establishment and the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission to prevent it. The Commission sent Zack J. Van Landingham, a "subversive investigator", to assist McCain. He handled Kennard's file personally and had John Reiter, the school security chief, look for any criminal record from Kennard's time in Chicago. On September 15, 1959, Kennard was falsely arrested by constables Charlie Ward and Lee Daniel for reckless driving upon returning to his car from a meeting with President McCain.

Kennard was twice arrested on trumped-up criminal charges and eventually sentenced to seven years in the state prison. McCain's direct involvement in this incident is unclear. He was certainly as aware as other intimate members of the state political establishment were that the charges were fraudulent but made no public objection. the reality of Mississippi life saying that those blacks who sought to desegregate Southern schools were "imports" from the North. (Kennard was, in fact, a native and resident of Hattiesburg.)

McCain said, "We insist that educationally and socially, we maintain a segregated society... In all fairness, I admit that we are not encouraging Negro voting." "The Negroes prefer that control of the government remain in the white man's hands."

McCain engaged in verified homophobic acts of purges and witch hunts of faculty and students.

1965 integration By the fall of 1965 both Ole Miss and Mississippi State University had been integrated—the former violently, the latter peacefully. University of Southern Mississippi leaders, such as President McCain, had come to realize that the battle to maintain segregation was lost. Therefore, they made extensive confidential plans for the admission and attendance of their first black students. A faculty guardian and tutor was secretly appointed for each. The campus police department had very strict orders to prevent or quickly stop any incident involving the two black students. Student athletic, fraternity, and political leaders were recruited to keep the calm and protect the university from such bad publicity as Ole Miss had suffered from its reaction to James Meredith.

As a result, black students Gwendolyn Elaine Armstrong and Raylawni Branch were enrolled without incident in September 1965.

As the years passed after 1965, McCain gradually lost the iron disciplined control he had held over the university. After the Jackson State killings of student protesters on Thursday and Friday, May 14–15, 1970, some 75 black students staged a sit-down at his home and then his office. Their demands included the integration of the campus police, the establishment of black social sororities and fraternities, and the inclusion of blacks on the faculty. Preparing for a protracted process of negotiations, McCain asked the black students to elect a leadership group with which he would deal.

At this time he was also in a struggle to keep the ACLU off his campus. This culminated in January 1972, with a Federal District Court order to grant the ACLU a charter to operate on campus.

In the twenty years that McCain served as president, enrollment grew from 3000 in 1955 to more than 11,000 in 1975.

When he retired in 1975, a Chair of History and the university archival library were named in his honor. He then kept an office in the library as President Emeritus. He died on September 5, 1993, and is interred at Lakewood Memorial Park in Jackson, Mississippi.

Later life In the later decades of his life McCain was best known for his work in successfully—if highhandedly—building a small teachers college into the regional educational powerhouse that became the University of Southern Mississippi and for his anti-integration activities in the 1950s and 1960s. He was also recognized regionally as an author, lecturer, historian on the Confederacy and post-Civil War period, archivist and genealogist.