George Harmon

I often write about George Harmon, past president of Millsaps College and former squash champion of Mississippi and the universe.

"Were you friends?"

Well, Ma’am, that's complicated.

George was a generation older than I was. I was in school with his son and daughter. I knew a boy who liked his daughter but wouldn't call, no matter how much we prompted him to. Like me, George was a natural Southerner. He was a New South Republican. A type of creature that doesn't really exist anymore, but once had a presence here. Guys like Gil Carmichael and Jack Reed would be examples. They'd be called "Rino's" now and run out of town. I could name a few New South Republicans left, but as I'd like for them to get reelected, I'll leave them out.

My dad was a New South Democrat, which was a pretty good compliment to New South Republicans. Together, they accomplished quite a lot. You rarely hear about a New South anything anymore. People want the Old South back. People have short memories.

George and I had the exact same focus, but very different perspectives. We never agreed we'd speak truth to each other, but we always did. Technically, my dad held the reins on George's job, but George never hesitated to tell me to go to hell, in those exact words. He admired my strength, and I admired his speed and grit. And so it goes.

I always thought we'd have to hit George in the head and drag him off to get him to retire. Imagine my shock when he announced it out of the blue. One of the healthiest men I ever knew, I figured George would be on TV for his one hundred and tenth birthday, telling the cameramen to fuck off and challenging them to wheelchair squash, then cornering the newscaster to talk to them about giving to Millsaps.

Imagine my shock when my sister called one day to say George had contracted an infection over the weekend and was dead.

"Dead. Wait, dead? George is dead?" I struggled to comprehend it.

Everyone loved fast Eddie Collins when he ran Millsaps, including my dad, who was chairman of the board. The board, including my dad, felt like Millsaps wasn't living up to its potential and dying on the vine. Telling your friend he has to step down was an unpleasant, but near-constant part of my dad's life. The Dean took over as interim president, and a search began.

George was a plucky young guy, twelve years younger than Dad. He had an audacious idea. He sold my dad on it. Dad sold the board and the Methodist church on it.

In Mississippi, only Mississippi State offered an MBA. They struggled to find believers. George worked up a proposal where a small school like Millsaps could offer an MBA based on what the Harvard Business School had. Preposterous. Ridiculous. My dad received a fair amount of teasing over it. But he was sold, and so it began.

To staff his vision, George went out like King Arthur seeking knights for the Round Table. He found a Dean, an economics and banking teacher, marketing, management, and accounting; the knights were coming together. He sought out a benefactor. Charles Else had a reputation for being a tough solicit, but since he had more money than Solomon, everybody tried. George got the most, and now his vision is the Else School at Millsaps.

There were many challenges to George's tenure at Millsaps. One of the last was when Kiese Laymon signed up as a writing student. Kiese wrote about the difference between the social experience at Millsaps between white and black students. Millsaps was legally and morally bound to provide the same academic opportunities between white and black students, but social experience was different. It was squishy, evasive, and difficult to control. What Kiese wrote caused a remarkable stir. It amused me in a way because his biggest reveal was that the white Greek scene drank too much and drew too much attention to themselves.

"You don't say! I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!"

"Your winnings, sir."

George's position was that students shouldn't have social lives. They were expensive and a distraction. Dealing with them was a constant distraction to him, so he brought in guys like Stuart Good to run interference. Stuart was a saint, by the way. If I ever saw something that needed extra attention, Stuart was my ally.

One year, during Bid Day, Kiese's girlfriend told him some white fraternity boys had called her the N-word. As you would if it were your girlfriend, he responded by rolling out to fight them. He took with him a collectible baseball bat, which was half the size of a regular baseball bat. I dunno what he thought that would do.

He confronted Kappa Alpha and Kappa Sigma boys, some covered in body paint, mostly purple, but some black, and some wearing Confederate flags as shirts and capes. At the time, these things were pretty cheap at Walmart.

Words flew, but not fists. Security was on hand double quick. Later, Kiese got a sports reporter he knew to confront the fraternity boys and tape it. It was on in earnest.

The first result was that George banned the display of Confederate symbols. Charles Sallis, from the history dept. had been after him to do this for years. Although they clashed, George listened to Dr Sallis on many issues, including the honor code.

I met George for coffee in his office. This was not unusual. I told him I was there, maybe fifty yards away. While I saw this woman give the fraternity boys a poison look, I didn't see them say anything to her until Kiese emerged ready to fight them. I never had an issue with what he did, except for the half-sized bat. If my girlfriend said somebody disrespected her, I would have found a full-sized bat.

I didn't see anybody disrespect her, though. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. It just means I didn't see it, even though I was in a position to. Since there was a video of painted boys with Confederate flags, George's perspective was that we had to presume her story was true, but since Kiese had a weapon, albeit an ineffectual one, the frat boys’ story was also true.

On the advice of Bill Goodman, lead counsel for the school and board member, nobody was punished, but everybody was on probation. Both fraternities were on social suspension for a year. A professional conflict resolution team was called in, and Ruben Anderson was asked to oversee the entire thing.

I felt like this was the right response. I felt like Anderson's influence could have a far-reaching effect on Millsaps. I spoke with the KA boys, the Knight Commander and Provence Commander to tell truth to the fact that this was real, and boys who fucked around would find themselves looking for a new college. Despite this, I felt certain it was some white boy who would break the peace. It didn't work out that way.

The same woman from before asked Kiese to get her a book from the library. I presume both her legs were broken and she had no friends, because, like a lot of literature, theatre, and history students, Kiese let his overdue fines at the library get out of control, and he lost his lending privileges. It wasn't unusual in those days for students to scramble to pay their library fees so they could get their degree.

In his book, Kiese describes it as "borrowing" the book. I'm sure he intended to, but judging from his overdue fees, his ideas about returning books and his practice of it were two different things. This was not unusual. The book he wanted to borrow was from the reference desk. It was never supposed to leave the library, no matter the status of your lending privileges. Again, I feel like the woman with the broken legs knew that.

His plan was to drop the book over the rail from the second floor to the basement, where he could pick it up, bypassing the machine that beeped when you didn't properly check out books. The book that his girlfriend asked him to get. The girlfriend with two broken legs and no friends with a working library card.

His plan probably would have worked. Except the book landed flat on its cover, making a loud "bang!" Alerting the student library worker, who said, "Wait. Is that Kiese?". She actually considered herself a fan and a friend of his, but was a remarkably straight kid, and passed what she saw on up, and up.

"Goddamnit, Boyd, you're not appreciating the spot I'm in." After threatening the fraternity boys with the loss of their testicles if they broke probation, George was now in a spot since, not only was Kiese the one who broke probation, but the entire school knew about it. He wasn't expelled, but he was suspended long enough to be a problem.

George let me see the CCSC video from the library. It was clear enough to read the cover and the dumb look on Kiese's face when it went "bang!" That the book wasn’t supposed to leave the library for anybody complicated things.

I'd asked him before, but I asked him again. "How much do you trust this woman?" He was getting suspended for sneaking out a book his girlfriend wanted. Two semesters were as good as a lifetime when you’re trying to finish. I wasn't without sympathy. My alternative was one semester, but apparantly the rules were set out when everybody was put on probation. Changing the rules for him would have caused problems. At this point, it became a matter of who was going to sue the school for not being fair. No matter what George chose, he was in trouble.

As you might imagine, Kiese has pretty strong feelings about these things. There are two sides to every story, though. The school spent a fortune to address the issues he wrote about and brought in some very earnest people, like Ruben Anderson. Some problems are not solved, though.

In his books, Laymon said the Purple and White was shut down because of controversies regarding his writing. That is not true. The Purple and White had spent twice its budget and had published a full color image on its cover that looked very much like a penis, but actually wasn’t a penis. The big red penis was actually more of an issue with the board and the church than anything Laymon wrote. He also says he was suspended because of his writing. That’s equally not true. He was suspended because he was already on probation for fighting, and everybody else who was also on probation faced the same conditions. Hardly anyone thought he would be the one to break probation, but once he did, it was immediately known all over town.

I think George was pretty tired of dealing with this guy, but I don’t think he took exception to what he wrote. George Harmon was possibly the only person on campus who disliked the Greeks as much as Kiese.

Smoking a cigarette in the bowl with the new Editor of the Purple and White (a whole other but related story), I saw Chokwe Lumumba stalking around the edges of the bowl. I excused myself and made my way up the hill to George's office.

"We have a new problem."

A communist and leader in the Republic of New Africa, Lumumba was well known in Jackson. Wayne Miller, the head of Millsaps security, was a police officer in 1971 when the police tried to serve warrants at the Republic of New Africa offices in Jackson that ended in a shootout. Lumumba's communist sympathies were pretty diluted by the time he was elected mayor.

It was decided to ban the lawyer and civil rights worker from campus. I was against it. "Goddamnit, Boyd. What choice do I have?" I thought quietly ignoring his presence unless he tried to speak would work. "What then?" George asked. He had me.

George felt like he had gone above and beyond to resolve the Kiese story. The conflict resolution guys cost a fortune, and he was under pressure from every side to protect the career and reputation of both white and black students. I felt like his efforts were earnest, but social issues, and particularly social issues involving race, are both incredibly squishy and incredibly tense, and all both sides really wanted was to fight it out, which both George and I wanted to prevent.

I should point out that the current governor of Mississippi was one of the boys who was on probation and social suspension, even though he wore no body paint or Confederate flags. Kiese has wanted for years to discuss this with him, but the governor won't. I'm more than happy to let them fight it out.

I've already told you what I saw that day, which is a little bit funny since I spent twenty years saying I never would. Truth be told, if Kiese was actually led into something by an inconsistent girlfriend, he wouldn't be the only one. That's something we share.

One unexpected consequence of all this was a collection of conversations between me and former mayor Lumumba, the father, not the son, about Mississippi, race, poverty, and communism. You don't have to agree with somebody to understand their perspective. My feelings on communism are that while all animals are equal, some animals are more equal, and that's how it always ends with communism. Capitalism has its own problems, but they are different problems.

So, to answer the original question, was he my friend? I loved him according to my bond, no more, and no less. We were equally willing to say the other was wrong and should visit hell when we deserved it. That probably is all friendship could ever be. He was not my master; that's Brent and Lance. He was not my counselor. That's Katherine and Suzanne. He was my brother in arms, which is a unique bond.

This went on longer than I thought. I left out about a billion bits. Stories are mortal things.