U.S. District Judge William Alsup on return to MSU: ‘So much progress has been made’

Contact: Sasha Steinberg

STARKVILLE, Miss.—As the newest guest in Mississippi State’s Lamar Conerly Governance Lecture Series, U.S. District Judge William Alsup spoke Thursday [Feb. 28] about influential people and experiences that moved him to embrace full equality as a Mississippi college student in the late 1960s.

Alsup, a 1967 MSU mathematics honors graduate and 1972 Harvard Law School public policy master’s graduate, returned to the Starkville campus for a discussion on his new memoir “Won Over.” The memoir follows Alsup’s journey as a Jackson, Mississippi, boy with parents who believed in segregation, but taught their son impartiality and civility. In the book, the Provine High School graduate reflects on how his experiences in navigating events of the Civil Rights Movement opened his eyes to the cruelty of racism.

“As a kid growing up, you may take as your starting point the views of your household. My parents believed in racial segregation, but at the same time, they taught us fairness and decency and therein laid the conflict,” said Alsup, who was appointed in 1999 to serve on the U.S. District Court from the Northern District of California. “Many people in those days just went with the flow because that was the easy thing to do. But at some point, maybe you work up the courage to speak out against what you think is unfair.”

For Alsup, one such experience came in 1967. He was an upperclassman and president of MSU’s YMCA chapter, one of two student groups that persevered in the face of controversy to organize an on-campus speech by then-state NAACP President Aaron Henry.

Spearheaded by the Young Democrats Club under the direction of Alsup’s then-roommate, Danny Cupit, Henry’s address on Jan. 10, 1967, was the first to be given by an African-American on a traditionally white college campus in Mississippi.

Alsup said Henry received polite applause and a standing ovation from several hundred attendees who listened intently as he spoke on the need for whites and blacks to work together to advance the state.

“This event was a model of what dialogue and exchange of ideas should be in a time of tumult, and I could not have been prouder of the students and the way in which everyone there had acted generously, as adults, and with no violence,” Alsup said. “I would say I finally won over to the right side of history toward the end of my years here in Mississippi, and that was because of the influence of the YMCA and the attitudes of the people there like our faculty adviser, Kermit Clardy.”

At the end of his recent Black History Month presentation, Alsup offered “fatherly advice” to students in the audience. He also shared these words of wisdom while speaking this week to MSU classes.

“Don’t undersell yourselves and think that you’re not as good as anybody else in this country,” he advised. “You are just as good and you might even be better in a lot of respects because of the values that you have. Don’t be afraid to get out there and compete against the rest of the country.”

Alsup, who still has fond memories of entering MSU as a freshman in 1963, said his return this year to the Starkville campus has been an eye-opening experience.

“So much progress has been made. The student body is so different today in terms of the percentages of African-Americans and women. The landscaping is beautiful. Whoever is in charge of landscaping gets an A plus,” he said with a smile. “The level of discourse here is so much higher now than it was back in my day. The amount of change that I have seen, all to the good, is remarkable.”

Following his presentation, Alsup received a personalized cowbell with one side bearing a decal of the “Won Over” cover. Whit Waide, MSU assistant clinical professor, presented the gift on behalf of the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President, College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Political Science and Public Administration, and the student Pre-Law Society.

The Lamar Conerly Governance Lecture Series is made possible by major support from Conerly, a 1971 MSU accounting/pre-law graduate and longtime partner in the Destin, Florida, law firm of Conerly, Bowman and Dykes LLP. He is both a former national MSU Alumni Association president and College of Business Alumni Fellow.

MSU’s College of Arts and Sciences includes more than 5,300 students, 300 full-time faculty members, nine doctoral programs and 25 academic majors offered in 14 departments. Complete details about the College of Arts and Sciences or the political science and public administration department can be found at www.cas.msstate.edu or www.pspa.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.