>> From the Library of Congress in Washington DC.
[ Silence ]   >> Well good afternoon.
Welcome to the Library of Congress.   I'm John Coal.
I'm the Director of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress,
which is the reading promotion arm.
We represent books, reading, and literacy on behalf of the Library
of Congress around the country, through affiliated state centers
for the book, and also through non profit organizations
that we consider to be reading promotion partners.
We were created in 1977 by legislation under the leadership
of Daniel Vorsten and through the expansion of the National Program.
And now, new activities here at the Library of Congress,
we're doing what we can to keep books reading, and literacy alive.
One of our major activities is the National Book Festival,
which has been on the mall since 2001, in which the center
and the entire library plays a role.
In fact, we now call it the Library of Congress National Book Festival,
and it will be again, in late September this particular year.
We also have Books and Beyond talks.   And we're pleased to have you hear.
These talks are featured talks about new books that have some kind
of a special relationship to the Library of Congress.
Often, they've relied on the Library of Congress's resources.
Sometimes They're a result of a Library of Congress project.
Often it's a combination of Library of Congress resources, projects,
and a co-sponsorship with one of the Library of Congress offices.
And that is the case today.
The publishing office is the co-sponsor of this talk,
and we're very pleased that together we can also welcome C-Span,
which is filming the talk along with the Library of Congress itself.
All of our Books and Beyond talks are videotaped for later broadcast
on LC's website, and we have over 200 of the Books
and Beyond talks available on the website.
We also have over 700 of the author talks
from the National Book festival on the website.
So we are pleased to be a resource for contemporary American writing
and contemporary American affairs, as reflected in books.
Because of course above all, we are celebrating the result --
the book that is a result of research and the projects
at the Library of Congress.
Today, we not only will have a talk, but as is the case usually,
we have a book signing that will take place starting
at about 1 o'clock.
Because our talks are being filmed for the website,
we want to alert you that in the question and answer period
after Henry's talk, we hope that you will have questions.
We know he'll have answers.
But by asking your question you're also giving us permission,
if we so choose, to include your conversation
and your question-and-answer session with Henry as part of our broadcast.
To start us though, I am pleased to get --
and also I must remind you to turn off all things electronic.
Thank you.
Our talk will be introduced by Ralph Eubanks,
who himself is a son of Mississippi.
And he has gathered a number of both Mississippites and friends
for this gathering, and I wish to thank Ralph for helping us
with our audience as well as the co-sponsorship
of the publishing office.   Let's give Ralph Eubanks, the head
of our publishing office, a round of applause.
[ Applause ]   [ Silence ]
>> Ralph Eubanks: Thank you very much John.
When I was an undergraduate at the University of Mississippi,
the riot that took place during the integration of "Old Miss"
by James Meredith, was fleetingly referred to as
"The incident" [chuckles].
The bullet holes in the walls of the Administration Building,
which is known as the Lyceum, were patched in a way
that the incident could be forgotten rather than remembered.
Still, I knew that the bullet holes were there,
and that they were important; and I knew why they were there.
When I walked by them, that pock-marked wall of the Lyceum,
I often thought of James Meredith,
and I knew that what he did there made my presence there possible.
Today I say without hesitation,
that an Old Miss education made it possible
for me to do what I do today.
I often tell people that Old Miss did more for me than it did to me.
And I'll also note that Old Miss no longer refers
to the riot as a mere incident.   Today, they call it what it was.
It was a riot.
Rather than running away from that turbulent piece
of our history, today we own it.
That's why I'm very pleased to co-sponsor this program
and to introduce Henry Gallagher today.
As the officer in charge of James Meredith's security detail back
in 1962, Henry had a special vantage point
about that time in our history.
And it was a very turbulent and special time in our history.
His first-person account gives a very fresh view
to a moment in American History.
A moment that shaped me and every Old Miss graduate
who followed James Meredith.
So without further adieu, I'm pleased to welcome Henry Gallagher
to the Library of Congress.   [ Applause ]
[ Silence ]   >> Henry Gallagher: Thank you Ralph.
Thank you John.
And my gratitude to the Library of Congress for hosting the event.
I'll try to put into 30 minutes what happened
to me 50 years ago, with some reflection.
This is my 10th book event since the book was published in September.
And each event is different.   Each audience is different.
Each of the questions are different.
I was a 23-year-old, ROTC 2nd Lieutenant from a small,
liberal arts college in Minnesota sent down to Mississippi to --
along with 15 - or around 19,000 other Federal soldiers
to quell the riot -- to put down the riot.
I was not aware of what we were doing; where we were going
because the Kennedy Administration had put a clamp
on public disclosure.
And not until we got to Memphis, were we aware of our mission.
It was such a delicate, uncomfortable effort
by our US military and it was a military --
and often times I say it was an army out of place.
It was not our mission.
Military police had the mission some times to put
down domestic disturbances, but they occurred once every hundred years
or something to that effect.
Clearly not the mission of the 82nd Airborne, or the 101st
or even the Marine Corp who were present
that morning -- 19,000 troops.
Two units had prepared -- had been given advanced notice
of what they were doing and they prepared for it in riot control.
Why all of this for one African American student who wanted
to get an education at his brand name university?
It's because the whole state was in insurrection from the governors,
from the state house down to the 11-year-old
who were throwing bricks at us in the street.
It was total chaos; total mayhem.
Even the Mississippi Highway Patrol had pulled away.
So there was your insurrection.
It lasted two or three days, the violent part of it,
and then after that I was appointed to be the security officer
for James Meredith and went to school with him.
Or he went to school; I stayed outside with a hand-picked patrol.
Three jeeps; 12 soldiers, and we were there throughout the year.
We transferred back and forth.
The Army was in place for almost a year
until he graduated in August, 1963.   I was 23-years-old.
I grew up in an all white neighborhood in south Minneapolis --
Johnsons, Swenson's, Petersons, Bergstom's,
a few Murphy's; a few Italians.   But that was pretty much it.
And so it was an eye opening for me, but again, we were trained and I am
so proud of what the Army did.
When you write a book -- and this is my first --
the publisher has the say on what the title should be.
I had called it Mississippi Morning.
Because when we woke up, it was 6 o'clock
in the morning and tear gas had passed.
Sun had come up; it looked like any other small town.
It was an awakening, but it was also an awakening of the culture.
The University of Mississippi would never go back to its old days.
But the publisher comes along and wanted James Meredith to be in it.
The book is not about James Meredith.
So often book titles -- the subtitle carries the story,
and it is a soldier's story.   An army out of place, yes.
But again, they did their job.
I saw pieces of violence after that first morning.
But then we moved into somewhat boredom.
Boredom to the point that even he, himself -- James Meredith --
an eccentric character, but a brave character, sort of chafed
at being guarded, as we would guard him.
Not moving him around from point-to-point, as we were advised
by John Doar, my iconic hero -- Civil Rights hero --
First Assistant in the Civil Rights Division.
And Nicholas Casenbach [phonetic].
He was to have as much freedom as any other student.
Well, yes.
But at the same time there are deer hunters and it was the season
and we had constant -- we were constantly aware who might come
up onto the campus; didn't look like a student.
Had a bent mind and a deer rifle.
And we had to be constantly aware of that kind
of threat to his life [pause].   He was a brave person.
I was sitting in his dormitory room the first couple days reading the
hate male, the death threats.
And they're very accurate; very detailed.
James, we know where you live.   We know where your parents are.
We're going to kill you.   We're going to kill your twins.
And I looked at James, and I said, "Have you read this one?"
He looked back at me, he said, "Lieutenant,
I'm late for my Spanish class.   Let's go."
That kind of bravery stayed with him and that kind of courage stayed
with him throughout my association with him.
He never cracked; he never blinked.   The students blinked.
I should say, that 99% of the student body went
about their way, getting an education.
They cared little about him being on the campus.
To them it may have been an annoyance --
we were the annoyance for the students.
There was a hand full of students
that would go wherever he went, every corner.
"Here comes the nigger.   Go back to Africa you black bastard.
We're going to get you.   We're going to get you."
And that stayed on through October and November.
But it lessened when I came back in the spring.
The racial attitudes were still there.
He always reminded me it wasn't just the students yelling out,
it was their parents; their grandparents.
The legacy of the separation of races in that state.
It was there then, it's -- to a certain extent it's there now.
Fifty years later we have an African American President.
And the night he's re-elected, there's a disturbance on the campus.
It should not be blown up.
Many of the headlines the next morning said,
"Racial protest at Old Miss".   Well it was not.
It was a group of students who didn't
like the results of the election.
But just a handful of them were throwing
out racial slurs, screaming.   So that has to be in context.
Ralph eluded to Mississippi today.
There's an expression, "Mississippi was; Mississippi is."
It means they've changed.
They've changed in a way that I think a lot
of the Northern press was not aware.
We're not aware then of the racial issue, and probably not aware now.
The Army had been -- thank you Harry Truman --
the Army had been desegregated, to a point by the time I got in,
in 1962, it was flattened out.
There was no -- there may have been racism back in the barracks;
in the tents, but it was not -- it was not out in the open.
Alabama PFCs saluted Black officers.
Took the orders from Black sergeants.
Once we left the comfort of the Army bases and the posts
as we moved south, it was a different culture that we got into.
And of course it was a freeze-frame; a photograph.
A snapshot of racism that we saw that first morning and continued
to see while we were there.   So Kudos to the military.
They did a good job.
My driver one time asked me, Lieutenant what are we doing?
Are we doing any good down here?   And this was late November.
I said, "Well he's still alive isn't he?"
The only way I can respond to that, to a direct question.
But that answer to that question was enriched
and embraced 50 years later.
I was in Jackson, Mississippi earlier last month
on the 5th of 6 book events.
William Winter Archives, downtown Jackson; middleclass.
Mixed race, African American/White audience, maybe 30 or 40.
I told them the arc of my story and then we went into a question
and answer period for about 20, 30 minutes.
A little bit of a larger room than this here.
An African American woman about the second row back was sort
of fidgeting.
And I knew that she wanted to say something.
I wound down, I said, "Are there any more questions?"
She shot her hand up.
She said, "Yes, I want to say something.
I don't know how I can say it, but" -- I said, "Go ahead ma'am" --
"I think I've got enough nerve to say it,
but I want to thank you for coming."
I didn't know if she meant that morning, or 50 years ago.
She said, "Let me to tell you my story.
I was growing at Vicksburg.
Daddy told us that night to stay away --
stay in the house and stay away from the windows.
There's trouble out in the street.
Not a lot of noise out in the street.
It was not a good time for Blacks in Vicksburg,
and it was not a good time for Blacks to be
in the state of Mississippi.
That weekend, I had faith in only two things.
God and the United States Army."   That moment, I grabbed the podium.
She started tearing up.
As I tried to respond, I started tearing up.
And there was obviously a murmur of approval throughout the audience.
So she stood up, pointed her finger at me
and she said, "Thank you for coming.
I came over here 50 years later to say that."
And she sat down.   It was worth everything.
The book tour, I have a University Press, they don't pay advances.
I go to hotels, I pay for the airfare,
pay for the hotel, pay for everything.
Because I want to get the message out.
I want to get young people to know about what happened 50 years ago.
But that poignant moment answered the question
that my driver asked me 50 years earlier.
Sir, are we doing any good down here?
So I'll never forget that moment.
Putting a book together like this 50 years later,
it is in the first person because I wanted the reader to be with me,
but almost be ahead of where the protagonist is.
The protagonist did not know where he was going; we were not told.
The reader now has some idea of what was happening.
Not until our planes arrived in Memphis that next morning
to an airport, to an Air force base, to a Navy base
that had more landings, I think,
than O'Hare Airport had that morning.
It was busy.
The Kennedy Administration did not want to lose out on this one.
Anyway, when you're appointed to be a security officer
in such a situation you keep notes.   You keep notes and they're blaze.
They're telephone numbers.   License plates.
Names of people who are -- today we call them persons of interest.
People who didn't look like students.
Every night I had to report to the FBI for anyone that might have come
into Oxford and checked into a hotel
that didn't look like he belonged there.
So I kept those notes and I looked at them over the years.
I started this book 10 years ago.
And I started talking to people who were in my unit,
and they provided me with anecdotes.
And I looked over old newspaper sections.
I looked over magazines.   Started piecing things together.
Ken Burns says, "If you look at a photograph long enough,
the photograph comes to life.   The person that has a life before
that snap shot and has a life after it.
And you begin to, again, put things together.
So you take a photograph of some of your buddies that were at the camp
down there and you start looking them up.
Then you start making visits to the campus
and you start trying to retrace your steps.
So that's what became [inaudible].   And I connected all the dots.
And I had a lot of support -- some of you are in the room here --
to keep pushing this thing.
If I don't, I will sign books after this event.
If I don't have a familiar inscription for you,
I will put down, "Once you're done reading this book,
pass it on to a young person."
Again, this happened 50 years ago, but it happened yesterday morning.
Racism is still there.   It's still in Mississippi.
It's still in our society.
But they have made great strides -- they, the university.
Governor Winters institute of racial reconciliation,
we're most proud of that.   Bringing books.
Bringing people.
Bringing speakers to the University of Mississippi.
I brought myself a few people down.
Mark Shields [phonetic], a columnist here in town,
went down with me three years ago and he had an interesting comment.
He said, "You know, the northern liberal looked
at the Civil Rights Movement as a laudable event.
Noble -- noble movement until that movement started moving north.
And then the texture of the comments changed.
That's pretty much my story.
I don't want to tell you the story; I want you to buy the book
so I can pay back some of those airfares and hotel bills.
But again, it's something I want young people today to know about.
Racism is still there, but the Army played a significant role 50 years
ago, and I will never forget what that woman told me.
"Thank you for coming."   [ Applause ]
>> Henry Gallagher: Great.   Any questions please?
[ Silence ]   >> Henry Gallagher: Lionel?
>> Lionel: Well I actually was going to ask this question a little later,
because the same question that you were asked,
"Are we doing any good here?"   Is what I asked you in Vietnam
when we served there together in the late 60s.
And never knowing this chapter in your life,
and you gave me a pretty [inaudible] answer.
There are many shades of grey in Vietnam,
it wasn't black or white [inaudible].
And I learned a lot from you then.
Never knew the whole time that you had done this as a young man.
So I salute you and thank you for being a mentor, trying to answer
that question [inaudible].   >> Henry Gallagher: Thank you.
Thank you [applause].
Please, a gentleman in front of Lionel.
>> I'm wondering two things, one, why you decided
to do the book so much later.
And two, if you had any specific training in the Army
>> Henry Gallagher: It took a while to write the book.
I had a law practice here in Washington for many, many years.
I did keep notes and I felt ultimately
that I would put it together
and I'd piece it together for a magazine article.
And then it expanded, and it became what it is right now.
But always behind in my mind, I want young people to know.
I want young people to know that this ugliness happened.
And so it took a while.
My brother is a writer up in New York; he was my editor for a while.
I fired him three times.
And I went back with the help of my wife --
back into my first year of legal research
because I had to certify, authorize.
This is a piece of non-fiction and you have to put down --
I felt with a memoir you could just wing it.
Well you can't because once you start highlighting things you've got
to get authority for.
You even have to get a consent from people who --
with who you put photographs in.
You need the consent of the Army, consent of all this.
I had a letter from James Meredith right after I left,
which is in the book itself, and I wanted to put that in.
My wife reminded me, well you need his permission.
I didn't need his permission; he sent it to me.
But he didn't send it to the world.
So I sent a formal letter down to Jackson, Mississippi.
He signed it.
On the backside of the envelope he said,
"It's about time you got your book out 50 years later."
[Chuckles] So it took a long time [pause].
Yeah, it did take longer than I thought it would.
But again, piecing things together, "US News and World Report",
"Saturday Evening", "Life" magazine, "Look" magazine,
all those helped me support my story and it was a story again
of a protagonist that didn't know what was going on, but I put notes
in the book so the reader knows what's going on.
And the poor 23-year-old, Second Lieutenant hasn't a clue
until we get to -- until we get to Mississippi and to Memphis.
Sir, your second question, I'm sorry?
>> Training.   >> Henry Gallagher: Training.
>> Training to do it.
>> No. The Military Police are trained for POW,
for prisoner control, prisoners --
foreign prisoners of war or our own people.
Taking them back and forth from the jail
to the court appearances, things like that.
But never protecting; never body guarding something.
So we didn't have -- we had no starter kit.
We just winged it those first couple days.
And mistakes are made.
You keep looking at Meredith and not at the second story
of a building; not at a window.
You keep thinking like a mother watching this child go forward
and on the street you keep looking at him.
Well that's the wrong thing.   You don't look at your charge,
you look at who might bring harm to the charge.
And it's just instinctive.
You look at a crowd and you look at who's looking at us.
Why are they looking at us?
Are they planning what our schedule is?
Are they moving around depending on where we go?
Or are they looking at Meredith just out of curiosity?
They want to be there; it's a piece of history.
So again, training -- it was on-the-job training.
Has anybody in the military -- in the audience here,
have anybody served here in the military?
Please your hands?   So few of us left these days.
You just -- you just throw a Second Lieutenant into the pool.
And if he survives, he survives.
If not, you bring out another one; they're expendable.
So again, I picked sharp shooters.
I picked military policemen who were veterans and had some degree --
I felt some degree of performance, professionally
of self control; self restraint.   No trigger happy.
No Kent State incidences.   This was an important event,
and the eyes of the world were on these soldiers.
And so luckily I picked the right ones.
And in an event in Memphis the night before, the very few units had
to undergo was we were separated by the Blacks.
The Blacks had to step back.
The night before we went out the gate to Mississippi,
Kennedy Administration or Justice over the Army felt
that the situation on the campus was so incendiary, that the snipers
in the trees would have been picking
out Blacks coming in in their Army units.
But it was a poignant moment.
1962 Blacks had found a home in the army.
A large part of our leadership,
non-commissioned officers were African American.
One Captain was a Black officer.
Stepped back; shamed, couldn't go to Mississippi with us.
By Wednesday of that day, Meredith looked at me and he said, "Sir --
Lieutenant where are your negro soldiers?
You surely must have some?"
Well I sent that line up through the command
and they brought the Black soldiers down to reintegrated into us.
So, but they -- I picked people in the patrol who had
at least some common sense and experience,
but we've never had a body-guarding experience in that sense.
To answer your question.   Please. Sir?
>> Has anybody who participated
in the riots ever expressed any sense of embarrassment?
>> Henry Gallagher: Embarrassment?   >> Yeah.
>> Henry Gallagher: I did not have enough time
to finish what I wanted to do.
I wanted to have an appendix at the back of my book.
I put ads in the McComb, Mississippi newspaper; so neutral.
My name is so-and-so.   I'm writing a book.
I was sent down to Mississippi in 1962 by the Army and I saw
that there was a lot of emotion on the other side of this issue.
I'd like to talk to some of you.
I'd like to put your remarks in my book.
I didn't have enough time --
I got no response from that ad by the way -- but I --
had I gone further, gone into Alabama and Georgia, sure.
I probably could have come up with some of them.
I'm trained as a lawyer to ask neutral questions.
Who, how, where, when, what.
Sir, I don't care about your racist tendencies or your view
on segregation at the time.   But give me your story.
It would have added a bit more texture, I think, to my book.
To answer your question, I think very few people have come forward
in a public forum at least, and expressed their views,
whether they've changed their views or not.
There are a lot of them have not.
I would have wanted to have them interviewed as well.
It would have helped out at the end of my book as an appendix.
Ma'am?   >> Have you spoken with Meredith?
>> Have I spoken with -- from time-to-time, yes.
He's gone is in direction -- he's gone on his way;
University of Mississippi's gone on its way.
He is an interesting characters.
He's written a book this last summer again,
sort of revisiting why he did what he did.
Courageous guy [pause].   Ma'am?
>> I first just want to say, I commend you for writing this book.
And I think -- I commend you for writing this [inaudible] --
>> Henry Gallagher: Thank you.
>> -- I think so often we focus on the horrible things that happened,
which are important to share.
But I think it's also important for people who actually did something
to share their stories as well.   My parents were -- lived in --
my family lived in Alabama for generations,
and my Godfather was one of the Department of Justice employees --
>> Henry Gallagher: Oh!   >> -- [inaudible] as a student.
And I grew up hearing their stories.   >> Henry Gallagher: Sure.
>> But I very rarely hear in a public forum, individuals;
just ordinary citizens talking about what they did.
And I think it's important to share those stories so that we can learn
from that and know that we can do something.
And you can make a difference, and you can inform --
a public discourse, not just cow tail to the few
who are the majority are [inaudible] negatively.
So my question to you is, do you know of any effort to --
that's going on to collect the stories of people who --
just ordinary people who were involved and did something?
>> Henry Gallagher: Sure.
10 years ago at the 40th anniversary,
there was an old history project for those who returned to Old Miss.
And there were marshals, soldiers, students, faculty.
So I think a repository of that written word is on the campus
of the University of Mississippi.   And researchers are probably --
and clearly at hand for them to go through and do that.
Let me comment a little bit about what gets news
and what doesn't get the news.
My first event was here, in Washington two months ago,
at of all place an Alzheimer's group.
And I felt strange going into the room, but -- and --
but I did talk about my story.   About 20 men around tables.
And one man was agitated to the point -- because he --
we through some point of humor in there and he did not like it.
And he said, I tell you I was down there.
I was down there as a lawyer working with the radio stations in Jackson
on the Blacks and the Whites.
We were trying to reach some accomodation;
trying to reach some sort of meeting point.
And this is the first I'd heard of it.
Now of course, my mission that month was not reaching out to Blacks
and Whites in a radio station in Jackson.
We had the bad guys to go after.   But unfortunately, those kinds
of events don't get the publicity that they should.
Right-minded people; good-minded --
well minded people seeking some accomodation.
Not unlike what happened 3 or 4 weeks ago
on the election at Old Miss.
One newspaper reporter had called it a race riot --
racist riot occurring by the -- well it was not that.
Anti-Obama students; Pro-Romney students came
out on the campus and demonstrated.
It's their right; they can do that, against the results of the election.
And a handful of students were screaming out racial slurs.
Putting that in context, then the next day, three times that amount
of people showed up for candlelight ceremony, protesting the night --
the incident the night before.
So Mississippi was; Mississippi is moving on.
But yes, you're right.
There's more and more that should come out and talk about it,
so you can get a balanced picture that their view
of the south may not be the correct view today.
It's not just a bunch of rioters throwing bricks.
Thank you [pause].   John?
>> John: Henry can you talk a little more
about the special security detail
that you had following the -- either your initial --
>> Henry Gallagher: Sure.
>> John: -- and how, I assume, you were just chosen for that.
Was there -- do you know why you were chosen for that?
And --
>> Henry Gallagher: Well I'd gone through the --
>> John: How did it end?   >> Henry Gallagher: Yeah.
Yeah. I'd gone through -- thank you.   >> John: [Inaudible].
>> Henry Gallagher: I was the lead Jeep in my battalion from Fort Dix,
New Jersey, [inaudible] the lead Jeep to go down to Oxford.
We were not prepared.
I had to -- my Colonel looked at me, he said, "Do your best".
No map -- this is after I asked him about a map -- a map?
You ask the Army for a map.   Armies have maps.
They have maps of Central Europe
where the Russian tanks will come across.
They have a map of all the park benches; the fire hydrants.
We did not have a map to get from Memphis Naval Air Station
down to Oxford, Mississippi.   "Do your best he said".
So I looked up -- my brother had been an enlisted man in the Army
and he said, "You know, whatever you do
as a Second Lieutenant, don't show indecision.
Just make an order; make a decision and move with it."
So I grabbed my driver and a radio operator and looked
out across the -- one of President Eisenhower's new interstates going
along side of it and I saw a Phillip's 66 gas station.
Well there's the rest of the story.
I grabbed him on over and walked in, full battle gear, gas mask, pistol,
everything else [audience chuckles], up into this midnight --
on the shift -- midnight shift gas station --
a filling station operator, "Can I have a map of Mississippi?
You know one that just shows a little edge of Memphis up here?"
He jumped off the stool [chuckles], scattered around behind the counter
and gave me a map; out the door I went.
So that was preparation number one.
We did at least have a map, and the lead Jeep
for 640 military policeman; 140 vehicles.
At least the driver in the lead Jeep and his Lieutenant has a map.
Crossing into the base, I noticed
that there was a shore patrolman working the midnight shift
of that -- of that, and no one was coming; and a few cars were coming,
and I told my driver, "Ron, stop.
Stop. Let's move over and ask this Navy guy how
to get down to Mississippi.
Well, we put the map out on the hood,
and he had a flashlight and showed us, "Yes sir.
You go down this line here and you get to the state line.
Take Highway 78, you're going to get it.
You're going to get it."   Well, I felt okay.
Got back in the Jeep and then one of those things hits you.
I gave him a name of Jerrel -- I did not know his name.
I hope he reads this book
or his grandchildren read the book and let him know.
I went back to him and I said, "Jerrel, look, we're just a bunch
of Yankees from the North.
I know you're Navy and I'm Army, but you've got to help us out."
"Yes sir! I'll show you again."
"No. No. Don't show me Jerrel, Jerrel you're coming with us."
[Audience chuckles] And his eyes popped out.
He said, "Sir I can't do that.   I'll be AWOL.
And besides, you're Army; I'm Navy."
"Jerrel" -- again, the voice of my brother, just make a decision.
"Get in the Jeep.
Under orders from President Kennedy."
Well -- military policemen, if nothing else are trained to nudge.
And my driver was bigger than Jerrel, so he was nudged
up into the back of my Jeep.
So we raced back into the base, and 140 vehicles,
the headlights just looking at me, ready to go out the gate.
And I had that mixed emotions.
I had more assurance now; more insurance on how to get to Oxford,
but I also felt I had just kidnapped somebody.
Anyway, 5 minutes later; 20 minutes later we went
out the gate to Mississippi.
And down the road, met some resistance.
A Tennessee Highway Patrol escorted us up to the state line.
I saw this big sign, Mississippi, welcome to the Magnolia state.
And I was sort of looking around for Mississippi Highway Patrol.
Well aren't they going to pick us up and take us to there?
Well, I did not know that -- until 6 hours later I did not know
that they had totally walked off their performance of their duties,
totally left the state of Mississippi
and further insurrection cleared the campus in further insurrection.
Made our way down a two lane highway,
ultimately reported to a general officer.
And when you're a Second Lieutenant in the military, boy you barely show
up and reporting to a Lieutenant Colonel.
And here was a General Officer with a star on each shoulder.
And he said, "Lieutenant I want you to take a platoon of soldiers
down to the Lyceum and put out the riots.
Units have been there already, then go downtown.
So I did not -- I didn't want to ask him anything.
It's like a Chief Executive Officer
of a corporation giving a lowly employee an order.
You don't say, well excuse me sir, may I ask you a few questions?
No. You don't do that.
You just hope the secretary -- the executive secretary is lurking
out in the hallway that can tell you a little bit
about the order you've just been given.
Well, I said, "Yes sir" and out the door of this little airport confine.
And as I was walking back to my Jeep, a Lieutenant Colonel --
or Major came up and provided me all the details.
The Lyceum -- well, I didn't even know what a Lyceum was.
It turned out to be the major administration building
for the university.
So I went through a series of trying --
I was on a recon of three Jeeps trying to get back
to the battalion out on the highway.
We got lost; we got hit by the rioters.
Made my way back.
Went back through this back yard of this old lady who was by then 4:00
in the morning standing out screaming at us all.
I had gone through her backyard with my three Jeep convoy.
Made it out to the highway.
Found the battalion; had these orders from the General
and were ready to go back in toward the campus.
But I wanted to retrace my steps and I did.
Retraced my steps through that lady's side yard --
that side driveway.
I stood out on Connecticut Avenue one time trying
to measure how long it takes for 140 vehicles
to pass one point going 14, 15 miles an hour.
I think it probably took an hour for our battalion,
the Yankees from New Jersey to arrive in the South
through that old lady's back yard.
But a few minutes later; maybe an hour later, I had gone over to
where the command was in the Army and my Colonel came out and said,
"You're going to be the security officer for James Meredith".
And then I picked -- I hand-picked the best I could find.
Sharpshooters, self control, and we were not
to be too close to Meredith.
I -- 30 seconds of him and I -- by radio, and I've often said,
that we could only catch the killer, we couldn't really prevent harm
to him because again, he was allowed to feely walk
across the campus back and forth.
So that's how the Peanut -- it was called the Peanut Patrol.
Hardly something as ferocious like Bear or Tiger or this and that,
but a camo person came by the first day, and he said,
"Well what are you going to call your patrol?
You have to have a name for it for radio purposes."
And Vince Ferrell [phonetic], Providence College,
1961 was reading a Peanuts cartoon from the local newspaper
and he said, "Call yourself the Peanut Patrol
and you'll be Peanut 1, 2, 3, 4."   And that was it.
A week later the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred;
swept everything else off the news.
And I read a telegram from the Pentagon
that my unit would be deployed a certain embarkation point
in South Carolina along with the 82nd Airborne and the 101st,
but the Peanut Patrol would stay in place [audience chuckles].
So it became part of Pentagon lore.
A long, convoluted answer to your question, but that was it.
Please?
>> You eluded to the fact that you selected many
of your particular team and I [inaudible] going on, as you know,
working disasters ground rule
that [inaudible] both US military and the UN.
I've never seen that situation where the Unit Commander gets
to actually pick their [inaudible] like this [inaudible].
So you did [inaudible].   >> Henry Gallagher: I did.
Yeah.   >> Mm-hmm.
Does that -- I don't know if that exists anymore.
>> Henry Gallagher: Well you go to the First Sergeant, you say,
this is my assignment, please select --
because they knew more than I did about their own men.
And I had a whole battalion to pick from.
So we were able to get some pretty good people.
Generally they did their duty; nobody lost their cool.
We had one or two close, close incidents thereafter
in front of the cafeteria.
I found out while they hated the Marshals -- the Deputy Marshals --
the civilians running around in blue suits, they had a regard for us
because we wore a uniform; part of the tradition of the South.
Patriotism first.
So they didn't have -- give us too much trouble, but once in a while --
once in a while they did.
But again, the book is dedicated to my battalion members
because they were an army out of place and they performed so well.
>> What I'm trying to say though, is I'm not sure
that would have been the case today --
>> Henry Gallagher: No.
>> If the Peanut Patrol was born today, it would --
somebody would say, the following individuals will go
down under Lieutenant Gallagher.   >> Henry Gallagher: Yes.
>> Some guy behind a desk would decide that.
>> Henry Gallagher: That's right.   That's right.
>> You wouldn't have that same kind of Dirty Dozen --
>> Henry Gallagher: I think so.   I think you're right.
>> And that's a weakness.
>> Henry Gallagher: They would be corporate.
>> That's right [pause].   >> Henry Gallagher: Yes Ma'am.
>> I don't have a question, but a comment.
I grew up in Pennsylvania, in conservative Lancaster County.
But I was living in Gulfport, Mississippi at the time of --
>> Henry Gallagher: Oh.   >> -- the incident.
>> Henry Gallagher: Yeah.
>> And I learned in Mississippi that I was a Yankee.
And it was not a complementary term.
I'd never thought of it being applied to me before.
You know, [inaudible] Northerner --   >> Henry Gallagher: That's right.
>> -- I just never thought about being a Yankee.
But we didn't talk out loud very much
because our accents would have displayed us as Yankees.
>> Henry Gallagher: Sure.
>> And so the tension was tremendous.
And so we just kept a very low profile and listened
and it was a horrible time.   >> Henry Gallagher: Yep.
If you -- have anybody seen the movie "Help" or read the book,
that reflects and shows some of the culture at the time.
I think President Kennedy said, why Mississippi of all places?
Why couldn't it be Georgia which had a little bit
of a liberal tradition that was growing.
A little -- maybe Alabama --
but the deepest of the deep south states, Mississippi.
Well, James Meredith, you know, wasn't picked by a group;
by a committee, by anybody.   He just wanted to go to school!
And later on, the Army caught up with what he was doing;
Justice Department caught up, the Administration caught up.
Well who is this guy?   What is he doing?
So there's that [inaudible]; we had to play catch up.
A very brave guy.
I did not -- I was in a cocoon those 6 months I spent down there,
so I didn't have a chance to go off campus and talk with the locals
and see that, but again, there's the Square --
William Faulkner's Square -- down in the middle of Oxford.
Blacks sat at one end -- South segregation --
Whites were at the other end.
I don't know if it still happens that way,
but if you were an African American in 1962 and you had any business
to do on the Square, you'd better be about your business quickly.
Go to the bank; no loitering.
No hanging around talking to each other.
Get your job done and move on.
If you tried on a hat in Nielson's Department Store, it was your hat.
You bought it.   That kind of a culture.
When the Army has this kind of an assignment,
humor breaks out every time, and thank God for the Army humorists.
One of our Black officers says, "Hey look!
I'm in the front of the bus!"
He jumped onto a bus -- "I'm in the front
of the bus and I'm in Mississippi!"   [Audience chuckles].
Daily, daily, that kind of survival humor
if you will, because it was boring.
It was boring, except for those first moments
of tension during the riots and then tension later on,
when he would be moving from class-to-class
and we would spot a car that shouldn't be there.
Someone dressed that looked -- didn't look like a student,
but other than that, there's a lot of flat time and a lot of boredom
and thank God again for humor.
One New Yorker said, "I wish that, you know,
Mississippi should really be like a foreign state.
They should have, like Canada, different license plates
and cigarettes and soda pops
so we can recognize -- maybe different stamps."
And this was a man who couldn't wait to get back to New Jersey.
When the plane landed they all kissed the ground
[audience chuckles].   And he -- he couldn't wait.
He said, "I didn't want --   I knew the nightmare was not
over until I saw the word New York on the Holland Tunnel."
Thank you [applause].   Thank you.
>> [Inaudible].   >> Henry Gallagher: Where?
>> Ralph Eubanks: Well of course I want to thank Henry
for not only writing the book, but coming here to share his stories
with us and thank the audience, which came from many different areas
for sharing this experience.
It's very -- we had an educational experience together.
At least we did.
I went in the Army the year after Henry was
in the Army, as a Second Lieutenant.
And I was quite removed from this world entirely.
But I can understand, in part, your motives
and have some feeling for your own idealism.
Which obviously has shown through.
And I've -- actually when Tom asked the question earlier,
I had the same idea.
What was it -- when in your career did you realize
that this was something that you wanted to share, and for a purpose?
And the purpose was to educate others about a situation from which
so many of us were isolated, including other Second Lieutenants.
We're going to move to -- you'll have a chance to talk more
with Henry at the book signing,
which is going to be out in the foyer.
The books are for sale at a special Library of Congress discount,
and we're just very pleased that you're able to join us,
and you can talk more with Henry at that time.
So let's conclude with another round of applause, and you can speak
with him out in the foyer.   [ Applause ]
[ Silence ]
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.
Visit us at loc.gov.   [ Silence ]