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The Education of Mr. Mayfield: An Unusual Story of Social Change at Ole Miss

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At the University of Mississippi in Oxford, always known as Ole Miss, everyone takes for granted that there is not going to be racial discrimination keeping black students out. Fifty years ago, everyone took for granted that racial discrimination would prevail and that no black students could enroll no matter how qualified they were. The story of how James Meredith enrolled in the school in 1962 and started the change has been told many times, and has to include the rioting and even the two deaths in the riots. Perhaps it was impossible to make the change any other way. Meredith's dramatic story is famous, but before he entered the school, there was a quieter, less well known story of integration at Ole Miss. It wasn't official, but it was real, and it was the product of good manners, courage, and simple willingness to do the right thing. We are lucky to have the story now in a fine book, _The Education of Mr. Mayfield: An Unusual Story of Social Change at Ole Miss_ (John F. Blair, Publisher) by David Magee. M. B. Mayfield was a primitive artist whose paintings are now well-regarded and collectable. He was isolated in a little town in Mississippi, painting without any formal instruction just because he felt the urge, until he got the opportunity to get instruction at Ole Miss starting in 1949.

Mayfield was born in 1923 and grew up in Ecru, a town of less than a thousand in northeast Mississippi. He was delicate and shy, and could not stick to the sharecropping of his family. As a child, he saved up his money for watercolors, and he re-drew the comics from old newspapers that served as insulation and wallpaper inside his home. He never met anyone else who made art until Stuart Purser drove by in 1949. Purser was the chairman of the new Art Department at Ole Miss, an artist himself who liked rural scenes and was on a sightseeing trip. Purser was impressed, and not only gave Mayfield the canvas, brushes, and paints from his car, but also a life-changing offer. The Art Department needed a janitor. Mayfield could not enroll as a student, but he could work and in between cleaning duties, he could get instruction from Purser and could participate in some classes by just being nearby. Mayfield took him up on the proposal. His work space included a broom closet which stored not only cleaning supplies but the art supplies Purser had given him; it was his studio. The door of the broom closet led to the classroom where Purser taught, and during classes, the door stayed open, and Mayfield listened as intently as any of the officially enrolled students. He also got individual instruction, learning about shading, cross-hatching, and other techniques, as well as discussing a philosophy of art. His philosophy was simple: he painted to communicate, and explained, "Words don't always come easy. Pictures do."

Throughout the book are reflections of how astonishingly peculiar segregation was, and the tricks that Purser had to play to get around the rules. When Purser traveled around the state to lecture, Mayfield would not have been welcome to attend with the white audiences, but Purser had him pose as the art professor's assistant. As such, he toted the bags and paintings and operated the slide projector. There was no subterfuge, however, that could get them into the same hotel; Purser would drop Mayfield off at one hotel, and then go spend the night in his own. One time he took Mayfield to Memphis, ostensibly to pick up art supplies but actually to let Mayfield see the Brooks Gallery and its holdings including paintings by Renoir, Pissarro, Gainsborough, and others. When they got there, Purser was embarrassed; they had come on a day when "coloreds" were not allowed. Mayfield must have been embarrassed, too, and tried to assure the professor it was all right, but Purser determined he would see if he could do anything. He introduced himself to the director of the gallery, explaining that he was the chairman of his school's Art Department, and he had brought a budding artist to see the gallery but they had come on a whites-only day. It worked. "I don't make the rules, Mr. Purser," the director said, but then she added, "But I am in charge of the gallery. Anyone can visit as my guest. Perhaps you and your student would like to tour the museum today as my special guests." They got a personal tour.

There are quite a few such shows of generosity in this book, from people who were thoughtful enough not to be bound by the past. There are also some appearances by members of the Ku Klux Klan. Mayfield was to return to Ecru and become a working artist, making small amounts on his paintings, but cheerfully putting them out and gaining recognition. The recognition climaxed when he returned to Ole Miss nearly forty years after his instruction there, for a 1986 exhibit devoted to his works. Magee's charming and inspiring book, full of anecdotes from a strange and distant time, has all the simplicity and directness of Mayfield's paintings.