She Learned to Talk Low So People Didn't Notice Her

April 10, 1998

Retired teacher Susie Marshall says that she always lowered her voice when crossing Oxford's square as a child. "I was raised not to talk loud on the street, because we had all heard about the lynching of a black man, who was dragged through the street and hung where everyone would see," she says. "It was better if people didn't notice you." Not long after James Meredith, she enrolled at the University of Mississippi and earned a bachelor's degree and then a master's.