Why do they call ole miss

Our Faculty and staff perfect it. At Ole Miss, we're constantly asking ourselves if we're ready, even though we already know the answer- a resounding yes. But where's the fun in keeping it to ourselves? So yell it. Feel it. And above all, live it. Hotty Toddy. The use of software that blocks ads hinders our ability to serve you the content you came here to enjoy.

We ask that you consider turning off your ad blocker so we can deliver you the best experience possible while you are here. The late Frank E. Everett, Jr. Hell Yeah! Damn Right! Hotty Toddy Universities have cheers. Ad Blocker Detected. Thinking back on the struggles she's seen since joining the faculty in , she said, "The battle over Ole Miss will be particularly hot.

Last month, Blake Hinson, a guard on UM's basketball team, put the school's ties to the Confederacy in the headlines by transferring to Iowa State. Iowa State would not make Hinson available for an interview. Also last month, the university esports team dropped all references to "Rebels. The dangerous messaging at play. Jack Carey received his master's and doctorate at the university. He devoted a section of his dissertation to "the invention of Ole Miss" and is writing a book, "Jim Crow U.

The story of Ole Miss' origin, he said, is but one example of the school's deliberate efforts to hitch its image to the Old South and Confederacy. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries -- as old Confederates convulsed at the notion of civil rights and crafted Jim Crow laws to strip Black people of rights -- the university covered the campus with Old South iconography , Carey and others say.

It's quite a bit to try to explain away or rationalize. Aside from sending an unwelcoming message to more than a third of the state's residents, who are Black -- along with those who feel those residents' lives and feelings matter -- retaining the nickname poses deeper dangers in its messaging, he said:.

And it ignores the brutality, violence and force necessary to maintain slavery. By romanticizing slavery, Carey said, an institution doesn't have to confront it.

By fighting to keep its name and other holdovers of the Confederacy, he said, the university sends a strong message to prospective Black students: "Go somewhere else. Not everyone concurs with Carey. On Facebook and in interviews, many students and alumni -- and some would argue most -- feel the same way the university does about keeping Ole Miss. Despite their alignment with university leaders, they worry because the school has defended traditions like Colonel Reb and "Dixie" in the past, only to relent under pressure, said Howie Morgan, a graduate and political consultant.

Growing up with Southern parents in Vicksburg, "I didn't know what racism was," he said. A Mississippi fan takes a picture with some dressed up a former mascot, Colonel Reb, in That the Ku Klux Klan and other hatemongers co-opted the flag after the Civil War is just an example of groups stealing symbols, he said: "The Klan also used an American flag. The Nazis also stole a Christian symbol. He frowns on efforts to change Ole Miss or Rebels, echoing his alma mater's assertion that they've taken on new meanings.

Those who fought for suffrage and to end child labor were rebels, he said. He worries outside pressure is pushing administrators to "change from a niche market into a more bland university so we would blend in with all the other universities across the United States.

For senior Lauren Moses, a columnist for the school paper, the controversial symbols, along with Ole Miss and Rebels, are not honors. They're reminders, she said. We don't celebrate them, but we remember.

I don't think the majority of students who utter the words support neo-Nazis or racism," she said. When graduate student Zach Borenstein wrote a February column urging students to stop saying Ole Miss he'd be charged months later with vandalizing the Confederate statue , Moses fired back with a litany of traditions, including James Meredith integrating the school in , that she associated with Ole Miss.

She sees it as a microcosm of what's happening across the nation, where historic figures such as Christopher Columbus and Thomas Jefferson are removed from the context of their history and unfairly measured by today's norms and moral codes, she said. We're trying to whitewash our history and get rid of everything that's bad," she told CNN. We're destined to repeat the bad. Carl Tart, 22, the university's first homecoming king, faced backlash when he told his family he was attending UM.

Relatives disapproved of its racist and Confederate history, he said, but he had attended an all-Black high school in Yazoo City. Once on campus, he'd experience a range of racism. He shared anecdotes about hateful messages Facebook and screen grabs of death threats on Snapchat targeting Black students.

Other bigotry he experienced was more Archie Bunker than Bull Connor, he said. White students at pep rallies couldn't tell star wide receiver D. Metcalf from other Black players, he said. They'd blurt out the n-word while singing along with rap music in local bars.

At tailgates in The Grove, Tart and other Black students had to check each other's backs to make sure no one put "Our State Flag" stickers on them. Unwilling to study in halls named for racists the contextualization plaques "didn't go far enough" , Tart did most of his schoolwork at home, he said.

Despite his stature, 6-foot-5 and almost pounds, he found himself anxious when a vehicle pulled alongside him bearing the Confederate flag. The university is respected, but Ole Miss is loved. The university gives a diploma and regretfully terminates tenure, but one never graduates from Ole Miss.

As the story and the legend goes, in the manager of the football team, Garland Lyell, who was also a law student, along with the Greek organizations decided to publish a yearbook. Lyell was made the first editor and a committee was formed to come up with a name for the new yearbook. The publication board consisted of the following students, A. Griffin, J. Clagett, M. Evans, Maud Morrow, J. Tipton, E. Williams, J.

Willis, W. Hammer, Maurice G.