OXFORD, Miss. – A symposium honoring the work of
prize-winning journalist and author David Halberstam is set
for Friday, Oct. 12, at the Overby Center for Southern
Journalism and Politics.
The 11 a.m. event in the Overby Center Auditorium, Room147,
concludes Journalism Week at the University of Mississippi.
It is free and open to the public.
The symposium is held in tandem with a 6:30 p.m. reception
and dinner Thursday, Oct. 11, for the David Halberstam
Endowment Fund to benefit Teach for America-Mississippi
Delta. Tickets for the event, to be held in UM’s Paul B.
Johnson Commons Ballroom, are $125 per person and available
by contacting Ron Nurnberg, Teach for America at
662-234-6206, ext. 266, or
ron.nurnberg@teachforamerica.org.
Teach for America is a national corps of recent college
graduates who commit two years to teach in urban and rural
public schools. The program has been ongoing in the
Mississippi Delta since 1991.
Friday’s symposium is to include recollections by prominent
Mississippians and friends of Halberstam’s, including
former Gov. William Winter, former Boston Red Sox pitcher
Dave “Boo” Ferriss, plus journalists Julia Reed, Bill Minor
and Jerry Mitchell. Halberstam’s longtime colleague John
Seigenthaler, chairman emeritus of The (Nashville)
Tennessean and founder of the First Amendment Center at
Vanderbilt University, is slated to participate.
“We look forward to paying tribute to one of the great
journalists of our era. The South provided David with his
first platform for journalistic excellence,” said Charles
L. Overby, chairman of the center and former executive
editor of The (Jackson) Clarion-Ledger. After Halberstam’s
death in an automobile accident in California in April, his
family designated Teach for America-Mississippi Delta as
their choice for memorial gifts. His daughter, Julia
Halberstam, taught in the program in Greenville from 2002
to 2004 and is slated to speak at the dinner. Halberstam’s
widow, Jean, plans to attend all the events.
“It seems only fitting that the David Halberstam Endowment
Fund for Teach for America is launched at Ole Miss in
conjunction with the Overby Center’s tribute to David,”
said Ron Nurnberg, executive director for Teach for
America-Mississippi Delta.
“We are humbled by the Halberstam family’s decision to name
Teach for America in the Delta as a way for friends, family
and admirers of David’s work to honor his memory and to
perpetuate his passions for equity and education.
Mississippi as a whole and the children of the Delta in
particular will benefit immensely.”
Because of the support already demonstrated, Nurnberg
anticipates that the endowment will reach at least $5
million and provide funds for more than 40 additional
teachers in the program.
Because of the long relationship between Halberstam and
Mississippi – which included many visits to Oxford as well
as delivering the 2005 commencement address at Ole Miss –
Mayor Richard Howorth and the city’s Board of Alderman have
declared Oct. 12 “David Halberstam Day” in Oxford. The
declaration notes that Halberstam “came to us a stranger,
wanting Mississippi to succeed in good and noble ways, and
became our friend.”
Halberstam also is to be remembered during the Oct. 11
Thacker Mountain Radio Show with remarks by Julia Reed, a
Greenville native whose work appears regularly in Vogue and
other national magazines. The weekly program, broadcast
from Off Square Books in downtown Oxford has a statewide
audience.
A 1955 graduate of Harvard University, Halberstam entered
the newspaper business as a reporter at the Daily Times
Leader in West Point. He later worked at The Tennessean,
before moving on to The New York Times in the mid-1960s.
Halberstam won a Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for his reporting
of the early stages of the Vietnam War for The Times. He
later wrote for Harper’s magazine during the period when
the late Willie Morris, a Mississippian, served as editor.
Following the success of his best-selling 1973 book, “The
Best and the Brightest,” which detailed the flaws in
government planning of the Vietnam War, Halberstam devoted
his career to books. He wrote of wars, civil rights,
journalism and industry, yet some of his most popular books
dealt with sports, such as “The Teammates,” an affectionate
account of aging Red Sox players, including “Boo” Ferriss,
who later became baseball coach at Delta State University.
His last book, “The Coldest Winter,” published posthumously
in September, is an account of the Korean War.
For assistance related to a disability, call 662-915-7236.