“An amazing and historic piece of work!”

“With his book, The Tougaloo Nine, M. J. O’Brien provides an incredible service for both civil rights scholars and any reader interested in the history of the modern movement in America. Not only does O’Brien lift up a lesser known but essential story of determined young activists during the earliest stage of the nonviolent, direct-action movement in Mississippi, he helps us to understand how a small group of local people can usher in groundbreaking social change in the face of overwhelming resistance. He also connects the current moment of turmoil in American society to that past and shows us how the activism of the 1960s never vanished and continues to inform movements for social justice and civil rights to this day.”

This is a very well-written book that is compelling, engaging, and informative. I wasn’t sure that there was anything left to know about civil rights in Mississippi, but the author proved me wrong. His anecdotes are not just captivating, but they add texture and context to well-known stories and give behind-the-scenes information to never heard or under-heralded stories, giving important nuance to narratives of the freedom struggle….

This book will be a nice addition to high school, undergraduate, and graduate courses on Civil Rights History, Southern History, and Mississippi history. He shows the strategy and planning that went into several civil rights episodes (so many erroneously believe that all civil rights activity was spontaneous). I am especially pleased that the author includes episodes of struggle or failure (i.e. the first State Fair boycott). This adds important nuance to narratives on the freedom struggle…

M. J. O’Brien’s delightful account of “the Tougaloo Nine” is beautifully written and provides a compelling portrait of Mississippi’s nine sit-in pioneers and the all-Black worlds that raised, nurtured, and sustained them. By juxtaposing the Tougaloo student protests with Mississippi’s celebration of the Confederacy’s Lost Cause mythology, O’Brien also reminds us why the battle for civil and human rights was so fraught and so essential. By focusing on this one small piece of the Black freedom movement, O’Brien brings to life crucial themes with nuance and complexity. This is a wonderful, worthwhile book that will appeal to newcomers, specialists, and everyone in between.

The Tougaloo Nine contributes significantly to the growing body of work on the Mississippi Black Freedom Struggle and the overall national civil rights narrative…. No scholar has given this amount of detail to what is arguably one of the most pivotal moments in Mississippi’s civil rights history. While history often acknowledges the significance of the Greensboro sit-ins of 1960 and the subsequent founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, The Tougaloo Nine places a small-private Black college in the heart of Jim Crow Mississippi at the center of radicalism and social change all while painting an intimate portrait of the lives of the young people who engaged in a campaign to expand their knowledge by way of the library. The actions of these nine young people give new definition to what it means to have educational access, and the author has done an amazing job of lifting this story from obscurity.

This is a book that I believe will be one of interest to a general audience and one that will even be used in the academy. One of its strengths is that it juxtaposes two monumental moments in history – separated by 100 years – in which stories of struggle and schism intertwine. One story – connected to a larger national narrative – is a testament to the concerted efforts made to preserve Confederate heritage and history while commemorating the centennial of the “Lost Cause.” The other story, which is at the center of this work, is of Black agency and the quest for academic empowerment.