Ever Is a Long Time: A Journey Into Mississippi's Dark Past

by W. Ralph Eubanks

Book Overview

A gripping memoir of coming of age in Mississippi in the Civil Rights era, and a startling look at the once secret files of the State Sovereignty Commission This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0738205702
• ISBN13: 9780738205700
• Release Date: August 2003
• Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)
• Length: 234 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

A Cultured Gift Indeed

Going beneath and beyond a personal journaling of narratives Mr. Eubanks' expounds on a system that raised him and his family, and many others living inside and around Ole' Miss's Delta. The title alone hones in on this contention; harmonizing the phrase one of Mississippi's Governors made when answering the question, `...whether the public schools in Mississippi would ever be integrated.' It, therefore, became a stretch reading this account in a long time ago sequence, when this sequence of events still conjures so much remembrance, and values, and even a reworked system of beliefs and perspectives (albeit, not all negative) that I'd rather learn from, than turn away from. The mannerisms and culture I've come into contact with befriending people as refined as the Eubanks', who lived and lives in Mississippi, probes my mind wanting to know where these auspiciously well-bred customs derived. And honestly, this time, however many would like to forget, (to include those still bearing scars), was not so long ago. Ever is A Long Time is a necessary rendering of empowering significance, one I commend Eubanks' for writing.

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Poignant memoir of a deeply flawed society

This book deserved much more notice than it received when it came out. Ralph Eubanks left Mississippi many years ago, but Mississippi never left him. For decades, he harbored the desire to understand his home state's strange fascination, and the release in 1998 of the records of the state's Sovereignty Commission, which was designed to keep segregation in effect, gave him an opportunity to look back at his past. Eubanks always knew that his parents intentionally shielded him from the ugliness and the violence of Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s, but until he began to delve into the commission's records, he did not know how much shielding had actually gone on. He and his three sisters enjoyed a close family life and nurtured a sense of pride, even superiority, to the white people around him -- even while Klansmen and their supporters were targeting "outside agitators" and "communists," their names for whites and blacks who wanted to end segregation. Eubanks writes in a clear, straightforward style, mixing memory with present reality. He avoids cliches and brings to life a time long past.

Poignant, Admirable, Understated Portrait of a Sensational Place and Time

Rarely one reads a book that causes the reader to feel love for its author. I had that experience reading "Ever Is a Long Time." W. Ralph Eubanks' memoir depicts the struggles white supremacy thrust upon him and his family, from his white grandfather, who married a black woman, on down to his own children, whom he must introduce to their father's Mississippi. Mississippi in the 1950s and 60s -- one imagines lynchings, injustice, heroism, sacrifice, history writ in blood. Eubanks' memoir, though, is suprising in its quite and restraint. Eubanks's childhood was, in many ways, "idyllic," he reports. His parents were pillars of the community. He grew up on an eighty acre farm. He went fishing and climbed trees. White supremacy, though, was an unavoidable evil. His father, a college educated professional, was denied simple toilet facilities at his work place. The family did not pave their driveway, so that if an uninvited guest brought trouble, the crunch of gravel would announce his presence. Eubanks' white grandfather's photograph was kept in the closet, lest it rouse questions, and trouble. Eubanks grew up, and moved away. His sons' questions about Mississippi caused him to go back. In going back, he investigated the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a state-sponsored spying agency that kept records of 87,000 of Mississippi's just over two million citizens. Its goal was to thwart civil rights workers and federal integration efforts. Eubanks' parents were included on that list of names. Eubanks meets with a former Klan member, so torn by his own membership in that evil society that he breaks into tears after their meeting. Eubanks also meets with an unrepetent member of the MSC. Eubanks discovers that people he knew, liked, and trusted, including African Americans, were informants. It was Eubanks' voice that was most attractive for me in this work. I never thought I'd read a memoir of life in the Jim Crow South, written by a black man, that was so affectionate, and so forgiving, of that South, while expressing appropriate rage and grief. Eubanks comes through strongly as a very decent man. His book caused me to feel great respect and affection for his father. It was a very worthy experience to encounter simple human goodness in a memoir of such terrible wrong. Eubanks is to be thanked for this work.

Positive and Compassionate

This is an excellent memoir. It combines memories of a childhood in Mount Olive, Mississippi, with current historical research concerning the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Mr. Eubanks is now Director of Publications for the Library of Congress. His account of three years spent trying to reconcile his recollections of growing up in Mississippi with the stark reality of the history of that era makes for great reading. Mr. Eubanks final synthesis is both positive and compassionate. This is a book that every Mississippian who lived through that era should enjoy.