Professor William Hustwit delivered the Farrar
Award Lecture at the University of South Carolina on Oct. 26,
2012. In this lecture, he discussed his award-winning article
and forthcoming book James
J. Kilpatrick: Salesman for Segregation (UNC Press, spring
2013).
Hustwit was the recipient of the 2012 Ronald T. and Gayla D.
Farrar Media and Civil Rights History Award for his article published
in the August 2011 issue of The Journal of Southern History: “From
Caste To Color Blindness: James J. Kilpatrick’s Segregationist
Semantics.” This award recognizes the best journal article
or chapter in an edited book on the historical relationship between
media and civil rights published during the previous two years.
The contest judges, a national panel of three
historians with expertise in civil rights and media history,
unanimously selected Professor Hustwit’s article as the
award winner from a very strong field of submissions.
The judges found Hustwit's article
deserving of the Farrar Award for several reasons. It is elegantly
written and deeply researched. It engages important historiographical
debates about conservatism in the postwar South and underscores
the importance of race in the historical narrative. And it takes
journalism and communication seriously as historical forces in
political change in late 20th century America.
Hustwit is a Visiting Assistant Professor
of History at the University of Mississippi, where he received
his doctoral degree in history in 2008. Specializing in 20th century
U.S. history, Hustwit focuses his research on the civil rights
era and politics. He teaches courses on
U.S. history before and after Reconstruction, the South, Gilded
Age America, the 1970s, post-1945 America, and Latin America. He
graduated with a bachelor of arts in 2002 from Kenyon College.
