http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060421/OPINION/604210330/1166

Naming a 'Clyde Kennard Day' cannot erase history
By Bill Minor
Special to The Clarion-Ledger


Though well-intended, gestures such as declaring a "Clyde Kennard Day" can't blot out the deep stain on Mississippi's name left when the state literally crucified the black Korean War veteran four decades ago.

What makes the life of Clyde Kennard an especially dark chapter in Mississippi history is that because of his pursuit of a degree at Mississippi Southern College (now the University of Southern Mississippi), he became an innocent victim of official perfidy....

...Immediately after Kennard left the interview with McCain, he was arrested for having several bottles of moonshine whiskey in his car. Later-released Sovereignty Commission files confirmed what I and a few other journalists suspected at the time: The liquor had been planted in Kennard's automobile by campus authorities.

VanLandingham wrote in a Sovereignty Commission report that "no one would believe that the arrest was not connected in some way to Kennard's attempt to register." McCain, in an interview, called Kennard's attempt to enroll a "silly martyrdom."...

...I had found in 1968 that McCain, in an article for the Journal of Mississippi History had plagiarized large portions of a graduate thesis written by a woman student at Emory University in Georgia.

After I wrote about McCain's lifting verbatim whole passages written by the Emory graduate student, an investigation was launched by the American Historical Association and the American Association of University Women.

The AHA and AAUW jointly reprimanded McCain for violating ethical standards of "approved scholarly usage" of another's literary property....

...Regrettably, at least one building at USM now bears the name of McCain. If the state College Board wants to do something in memory of Clyde Kennard, they could start by ripping the name of McCain off any public building....