Dr. Rodney Bennett breaks barrier as first black president of Southern Miss

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Dr. Bennett was in Georgia when the tornado hit that Sunday night. But he quickly returned to Hattiesburg, to assist with the clean up and join his Southern Miss family.

“Although I had not worked a day on campus prior to that, I felt like this is where I needed to be and this is the work I needed to be a part of,” he said. “I think I was well on my way to establishing some credibility with the students, staff and faculty through the process that I went through to get here [as president]. But I think what the tornado really demonstrated to them was that I was all in. And I am all in.”

It was that compassion and dedication that many saw in Bennett during the initial stages of his interview process.

“He’s about fixing Southern Miss. He’s about literally taking us to the top,” Student Government Association President and senior Jazmyne Butler was quoted as saying.

“We are indeed fortunate to have Dr. Bennett as our new president,” Dr. Aubrey Lucas, the university’s outgoing interim president said. “He obviously has a God-given talent for relating to people, and with that talent and his experience and the support we are going to provide, he can be very successful.”

Southern Miss currently has about 16,000 students. Thirty-one percent are black.

Civil rights activist James Meredith became the first black person to integrate Mississippi’s all white universities in 1963 when he took his case all the way to the supreme court.

Clyde Kennard died a few months later.

Two years after Kennard’s death, two black women, Raylawni Branch and Gwendolyn Elaine Armstrong, became the first people of color to attend the newly designated and desegregated Southern Miss.

James Meredith, who lives in Jackson, Miss. and continues to advocate civil rights and education, praised Dr. Bennett’s position at Southern Miss and said there is still much work to be done.

“I think it is probably one of the most important things to happen to higher education in the state of Mississippi,” Meredith said. “My interest and my focus, however, is at the lower training of our children — from birth through high school — that’s the problem. That’s the biggest problem in Mississippi.”

Bennett said there were many other black students that faced situations similar to those of Clyde Kennard like Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Hamilton Holmes, Mary Frances Early and Horace Ward who attempted to eventually did integrate all white universities.

But Bennett said going forward, his objective is to open doors for every person regardless of color.

“I’m very proud that I’m the person who stayed the course and let things work out the way they needed to work out and that another door has been opened for a person that’s different from whatever the norm, if you will, might be. And that’s important because in my case it was being African American. But I’m also concerned with what women face. I’m concerned with what a person with disabilities faces. I’m concerned with what a person who is in the latter stages of their life but still wants to work faces from an age perspective.

I am very proud knowing that I’m playing a role in opening up the doors for other people who bring something different to the table whatever that difference may be. I believe it just sends a message that if you have some confidence in yourself. If you’re prayerful about it and you have a little luck on your side. Whatever it is that you rely on, that it can happen for you.”