Ed Meek will sign his photo-history book RIOT: Witness to Anger and Change at Reed’s Gumtree Books in Tupelo on Tuesday, Sept. 22 from noon to 1:30 p.m.
RIOT contains 120 of Meek’s photographs of the 1962 Ole Miss riot, many previously unpublished, with an introduction by Curtis Wilkie and afterword by Governor William Winter.
On Sept. 30, 1962, when a riot occurred at the University of Mississippi protesting the admission of James Meredith, Edwin Meek, 22, a staff photographer for the university, stayed up all night taking more than 500 photos with exclusive pictures of Meredith at his first class.
Historian William Doyle, author of An American Insurrection, calls Meek “the Matthew Brady of the crisis,” adding that RIOT is “an amazing document for the ages.”
Civil rights legend James Meredith called Ed Meek’s new photo-history, RIOT: Witness to Anger and Change, the “best book of hundreds that he has read” about the 1962 Ole Miss riot when Meredith became the first African American student to be enrolled at the University of Mississippi. Meredith said he read the book three times and that these photos “will last a thousand years.”
All proceeds from the sale of RIOT will be used to fund student and faculty publication at the Meek School of Journalism at Ole Miss.
