Ever Is A Long Time: A Journey Into Mississippi's Dark Past A Memoir

by W. Ralph Eubanks

Like the renowned classics Praying for Sheetrock and North Toward Home , Ever Is a Long Time captures the spirit and feel of a small Southern town divided by racism and violence in the midst of the Civil Rights era. Part personal journey, part social and political history, this extraordinary book reveals the burden of Southern history and how that burden is carried even today in the hearts and minds of those who lived through the worst of it.Author Ralph Eubanks, whose father was a black county agent and whose mother was a schoolteacher, grew up on an eighty-acre farm on the outskirts of Mount Olive, Mississippi, a town of great pastoral beauty but also a place where the racial dividing lines were clear and where violence was always lingering in the background. Ever Is a Long Time tells his story against the backdrop of an era when churches were burned, Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King were murdered, schools were integrated forcibly, and the state of Mississippi created an agency to spy on its citizens in an effort to maintain white supremacy. Through Eubanks's evocative prose, we see and feel a side of Mississippi that has seldom been seen before. He reveals the complexities of the racial dividing lines at the time and the price many paid for what we now take for granted. With colorful stories that bring that time to life as well as interviews with those who were involved in the spying activities of the State Sovereignty Commission, Ever Is a Long Time is a poignant picture of one man coming to terms with his southern legacy.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, African American, Biography, Social Justice, History, Historical

256 pages, Hardcover

First published August 25, 2003

About the author

W. Ralph Eubanks is author of When It's Darkness on the Delta: How America's Richest Soil Became Its Poorest Land, which will be published January 13, 2026 by Beacon Press. He is also the author of three other works of nonfiction: A Place Like Mississippi: A Journey Through a Real and Imagined Literary Landscape, Ever is a Long Time: A Journey into Mississippis Dark Past, and The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in the American South. Eubanks has contributed articles to The Washington Post Outlook and Style sections, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, the Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Scholar, and National Public Radio. He is a recipient of a 2021 Harvard Radcliffe Institute fellowship, a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship, and was a national fellow at the New America Foundation. Eubanks lives in Washington, D.C., and is faculty fellow and writer in residence at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi.

Reviews

[Paul Pellicci · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is right to show your children where their father's home was, where he was raised and what it was like. The history of our families must not be lost or taken for granted. The author has written a book which is easy to read but hard to take.

This story is a glimpse into a world influenced by racism. How it manipulated people's lives. How it determined the fate of so many innocent, clean living Americans. It's embarrassing.

[Mississippi Library Commission · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A siege mentality had taken hold of Mississippi, so informants both black and white made the Commission's members investigate anything and everything that might smell of integration, even something so trivial as a black man fishing in a public park on land normally reserved for the white man."

If you're not from Mississippi, you may not have heard of the Sovereignty Commission. From 1956-1973, this KGB-like, state-run agency policed and spied upon Mississippians. It was an omniscient and pervasive organization who's legacy left yet another taint on Mississippi's collective soul. Eubanks, who was born in rural Mississippi less than two years after Emmett Till's murder, grew up in this Mississippi. Ever is a Long Time is at the same time a fascinating family history and a searing look at that family's survival in a place that ostracized them in every possible way. Highly recommended.

[Justin Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this memoir. Eubanks writes about his experiences growing up in Mississippi and his subsequent trips back when researching the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission.

He writes without bitterness or anger. Even though he would be justified to be bitter and angry. He does not set out to point fingers but instead to try to understand the past and where we have been. I think he knows that we must do that before we can understand who we are and how we move forward.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am only on Page 20 and already this book has me 'hooked'. Let's see how it ends up.

Well I just finished reading the book. What a wonderful book; it intertwines growing up black in Mt. Olive, MS during the Civil Rights Reform era with a history lesson on MS's historical political support for segregation, especially the Sovereignty Commission.

I grew up in the sixties and admit I have learned more about the Civil Rights Movement and segregation through reading history books then I ever did as a child. This book can be painful to read, especially for white americans - the violence, the racial hatred, the political support of segregation; yet this book is more than just a litany of 'big brother' abuses - it is also a story of love and peace and how one man's search for the truth enabled him to come to terms with the segregated Mississippi of his past, allowing him to incorporate what he has discovered not only for himself and his family, but for America as a nation. I am glad he wrote this book. I think if you read it, you will be too.

[Elizabeth]

As heard on the NPR Books podcast.

[Margie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a memoir about a young black person growing up in Mississippi in the 60’s and 70’s. It takes us through his early childhood, which was sheltered and almost idyllic. Then he grows to school age and is confronted with desegregation, which he found isolating. After which, as a young adult he chooses to study at a staunchly white university. I always appreciate the courage it must take for a writer to share his personal story and I appreciate that through this story he has also connected his children to his past and is able to share with them his childhood home with its complex memories.

That being said, even though the Sovereignty Committee’s files seemed to form the backbone of the story…it was always viewed through the lens of a young man who had very little to do with the files and nothing to do with the civil rights movement.

I understood that his parents names were in the files…which would certainly be disturbing to anyone, but if there was anything more than just their names, he never shares that. There didn’t appear to be anything in the files that called for a deeper engagement or spoke to the violence and turmoil of that era in the deep south. In truth, he shared almost nothing of the files actual content even though he researched them over a space of time, making repeated trips to Mississippi for that purpose.

He mentioned more than once his own feelings of detachment from much of the strife that was roiling throughout the south during that period and the story itself seems to suffer from that same sense of detachment as well.

Even the interviews he conducted didn’t make anything clearer…He didn’t speak with any black people who had been involved in the civil rights movement, instead he seemed to focus on white people’s roles and behaviors and none of them shed any greater light on the Sovereignty Committee or it’s files. Even though he interviewed a Clan member who might have placed his mother’s name in the file, he didn’t ask any hard questions, so all we got from it was that this guy was a flawed individual who feels he made some bad choices, but then goes on to say that he regrets nothing.

I picked up this book because my parents moved our family from New York to Louisiana for five years (1966-1972). Consequently, I too experience desegregation and it was pretty awful. Those five years were the most miserable years of my entire life. I guess I was surprised there wasn’t more of a story there.

[Rosa Cline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a wonderfully written book by a man whom grew up in Mississippi and wrote about his childhood and how because his parents 'shielded' him and his siblings he didn't know all the things going on within his own county-state. He was involved with segregation in his school and often was an only black child in a class... but through out his retelling of Mississippi history this book isn't written in negative way. Or with hard feelings by him. For someone like me, that grew up in the mid to late 70's and in a community that we had no other skin colors but white. I never knew what was going on around me in other states. What families, just like mine but had different color skin had to deal with. Being afraid of having a paved road because with gravel they could hear if someone was coming down their road to burn a cross in their yard or worse.

Mr Eubanks does a great job at incorporating History into this book. Things I never was taught in school or even though some of this stuff that happened like the Megar Evers murder trial was 1994 wasn't in the local news or that I could remember. This stuff happened and was all to real for other people who had to live it. And I find that everyone, not just black families, need to know this history to prevent it ever happening again.

Mr Eubanks wanted to find answers to his past and answers to questions as to why his parents were put on a list to 'be watched' when they hadn't do anything other be educated. He goes on his journey back to Mississippi and takes us with him. Interviewing prominent people whom now years later sat down with him and visited with him. Mr Eubanks opens doors to things I would like to learn more about due to the way he introduced them to us through the history of this book. In the end he wraps up his journey with taking his two sons back to Mississippi and learning of things that they didn't know. A very moving journey for them.

I personally followed up reading this book with REWATCHING Ghosts of Mississippi a movie I had seen a MILLION times but after reading his book understood SO MUCH more! Thank you Mr Eubanks for taking us with you on your journey!

[Charlotte Dablo · Rating 4 out of 5]

“..some places belong only to the ages and memory; they are best enjoyed that way, rather than forcing their re-creation in a world where they no longer fit into lives that were formed by those very places. Once the mourning for what once was or might have been is over, life can move on.”

Enigmatic but very informative and emotional.

Segregation. Integration. Ku Klux Klan.
Sovereignty Commission. Civil Rights. Encroachment.
This book is a hard one to read as it gave a viewpoint of how real and galling racial segregation was before (specifically in Mississipi). It’s a firsthand experience of the author in his childhood, at the same time not knowing the full extent of it until he becomes an adult. And he was torn between keeping his childhood memory a good one or ruining it by re-visiting the past. I was also very awakened and agitated upon knowing that some people have to do and sacrifice certain things that are beyond what they’d do morally during that time for survival. The struggle in limited choices in life back then was super real. This book will make you become grateful for the people that fought for what we have right now. We should be taking care of it. This book has awakened my patriotic soul.

The very lesson that this memoir gave me is acceptance, moving-on but not forgetting ❤️‍🩹

[Melody Schreiber · Rating 4 out of 5]

W. Ralph Eubanks prefaces his first book with his son’s innocent question: “Daddy, what’s Mississippi like?” Eubanks finds himself torn between protecting his children from the harsh truth of segregation, as his parents attempted to do in his own childhood, and educating them on the bittersweet struggle for civil rights.

Over a period of several months, Eubanks debates how much of his past he should reveal to his children. He recalls his warm, sheltered childhood, but contrasts it against the turbulent backdrop of Mississippi in the Civil Rights era.

He introduces the Sovereignty Commission, the arm of the Mississippi government that kept thousands of files on the state’s residents and monitored those individuals for any signs of subversive activity. When the files of the Commission become public in the late nineties, shortly after his son’s inquiry, Eubanks searches the files for his parents’ names… and reels in shock when both appear on his computer screen.

Thus begins Eubanks’ years-long research into the activities of both civil rights activists and those seeking to curtail racial equality. He eventually resolves to revisit the “old home-place,” the site of both childhood joy and escalating racial tension.

Eubanks notes that he experienced a very safe childhood, partly as a result of his parents’ wise move from the Mississippi Delta to a farm in northern Mississippi. Provincial yet friendly, Mount Olive, or “Mo’nt Ollie,” as Eubanks fondly calls it, seems the epitome of southern culture.

Ralph followed his father to work every day until reaching the age to begin attending school. In this formative period of his childhood, he learned from his father how to garner and maintain respect, even in a culture that so often disrespected African Americans.

However, despite his parents’ careful shielding, Eubanks slowly woke up to the turbulence around him as he watched protests on TV and read newspapers influenced by the heavy hand of the Sovereignty Commission.

Eubanks encountered further racial division when, in the middle of his eight-grade year, the white school in town was forced to accept all of the students of the suddenly defunct black school. This experience, particularly his interactions with some hard-line segregationist teachers, cast a negative shade over his view of Mississippi, and Eubanks recounts:

“From the time I entered high school, I dreamed of leaving small-town Mississippi. My deepest secret desire was to live anywhere but Mississippi, particularly somewhere that no one knew anything about me.”

However, Ralph’s father did not want him to leave Mississippi to attend college, so Eubanks attended Ole Miss—yet another site that prompts memories composed of both joy and fear upon revisiting. Eubanks describes a peculiar kinship with the bullet holes punched into the stately architecture of a historic building on the day the first black student, James Meredith, was admitted to Ole Miss in 1962.

This sentiment is an excellent example of the feelings that Eubanks has for Mississippi; a mixture of pride and a deep sense of tradition commingled with a sorrowful regret and almost bewilderment at the darker chapters of his home state’s history.

“During my adolescence and young adulthood, living with remnants of Mississippi’s lingering past became so unbearable that I had to leave; in middle age, the same forces from the past had drawn me back. Rather than running away again, I had to understand this past that never dies and somehow reconcile it with the present.”

Eubanks realizes that he will only learn so much about the history of the Sovereignty Commission, and his childhood, from a distance:

“After months of poring over Sovereignty Commission memos, letters, and correspondence and revisiting Mississippi’s tortured past, I began to wonder how much of Mississippi’s past remained in the present.”

He decides to return to Mississippi to peruse the archives of Jackson and Mount Olive, which contain much more information than he was able to find online, including detailed and shocking “cases” against innocent neighbors that resulted in countless cases of imprisonment and personal loss.

In the archives, he finds reports on his mother from her supervisor in the public school system… a Klansman. Overcoming his trepidation and disgust, Eubanks arranges an interview with the man, only to find that his preconceived vision of a proud, defiant racist is far from the truth of the friendly man wracked by indecision and regret over his past actions.

Eubanks also interviews Ed King, a controversial figure in the Civil Rights movement of Mississippi. After both meetings, he realizes that the actions of those involved on both sides cannot be judged in black-and-white morality.

After years of research and soul-searching, Eubanks is finally able to answer his son’s question.

“What is Mississippi like? It’s a volatile world with dizzyingly complex social and cultural layers; as I visited more and more, I became accustomed to navigating my way through the tangled world where the past and the present and the sacred and the profane exist side by side.”

Eubanks’ research offers insight into not only his history but also the wider story of the Civil Rights Movement. He oscillates between relating warm childhood memories and presenting the results of rigorous research.

These and other discoveries, in combination with Eubanks’s candid discussion of his life, are part of what makes the multi-layered memoir so endearing. Eubanks struggles to integrate his past and his present even as he relates what integration was like. He attempts to synthesize the two worlds of his childhood – the safety of his own home versus the tumultuous atmosphere of Civil Rights-era Mississippi – with his adult world in Washington, DC.

Eubanks’s account, though tinged with sentimentality and occasionally dry research in turns, is an interesting read that sheds a uniquely personal light on “Mississippi’s dark past.”

W. Ralph Eubanks is a resident of the Van Ness neighborhood and director of publishing at the Library of Congress. Stay tuned for a summary of his Politics and Prose reading of his second nonfiction work, The House at the End of the Road.

[Lauren Rhoades · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The independence of a rural life compensated black families, particularly educated ones, for what the lacked materially. Moreover, it served as a shield against the turmoil erupting all around Mississippi at the time." (19)

"Little things take me back there: the sight of a dogwood tree in spring, a sprig of red clover, the taste of freshly picked peaches." (22)

"If there is anything that makes Southerners distinctive from the main body of Americans, it is a certain burden of memory and a burden of history...I think sensitive Southerners have this in their bones, this profound awareness of the past." --Willie Morris (75)

"During my investigation of the Sovereignty Commission files, the doublespeak and coded speech of the charter and similar treatises served as a continuous source of amusement...The use of the word 'sovereignty' was a crafty sophisticated way of expressing the state of Mississippi's resolve to preserve and protect racial segregation and prevent outsiders from changing Mississippi's segregationist way of life. Dating back to before the Civil War, Mississippi proclaimed its 'sovereignty' under the guise of states' rights as a means of maintaining a status quo acceptable to its white citizens." (83

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book starting while I was in Mississippi, visiting. This story is a first-hand account of growing up in the era of desegregation in Mississippi which is interesting and compelling. Born in 1957, Eubanks went to the University of Mississippi in 1974, only 4 years after James Meredith was the first black person admitted to the University. Eubanks walked into his room where he had a white roommate to find a Civil War flag on the wall. (His roommate took it down, but others did not.) This is the kind of first-hand account that makes his story interesting - and current. Eubanks also grapples with his mixed feelings about his home state and the events of his childhood, going back and interviewing people from the era. I thought that added a good perspective on how people change, including Eubanks himself.
Parts of the book felt overly nostalgic and that detracted from the story that Eubanks is telling. His family's farm is depicted as completely idyllic and his parents paragons. Those did not ring true.

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very informative read. Eubanks delves into his childhood on his family's 80 acre farm and the turbulent past that swirled around it. As official documents are opened and Eubanks finds his parents' names on them, he journeys back to the town that he couldn't wait to escape after graduating college from Ole Miss. He runs right into the dark secrets hidden just beneath the town's surface and headlong into his past. A great read for black History Month or any other time for that matter. The turbulent 60's and 70's are brought back to life for the reader in this poignant memoir.

[Tamar Coon · Rating 4 out of 5]

W. Ralph Eubanks wrote this book beautifully in the sense of not knowing your true reality due to certain things being censored. That protection that his parents provided shielded him from the cruel/harsh realities that was in Mississippi during that time. You could sense the resentment and the pure frustration in the words of this book. Growing up during a dark era in American history can be one thing, but not knowing who you truly are is another. I would strongly recommend you reading this book. This book would give insight to a whole different world that you did not know exist.

[JOSEPH W · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent memoir. I am always amazed that so many ex-Mississippians feel the urge to return to that state when they have so many terrible memories of the past there. I suppose the good memories of home are stronger than the bad ones. It is refreshing to see that he can go back there relatively safely now. The past may not be completely gone; but, it is at least not as it was fifty years ago.

[Mary Burkholder · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting to me because I live near Mount Olive Mississippi where the author grew up. I find it amazing that the racial discrimination he writes about was reality in this area just fifty or sixty years ago. The nuances are still here, if you look for them. But thankfully the worst of these realities are history.

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really gripping. I appreciated how personal it was, but also the depth of research.

The books is relatively optimistic to read regarding recent events in Mississippi, but perhaps that is the point. There will always be people fighting to oppress, but Eubanks believes there are more going in the other direction.

[John Philip Baroni · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Challenge of Understanding Mississippi

Excellent description of conflicting emotions while coming of age in Mississippi and the courage to explore these emotions to resolve inner conflict.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was very interesting, but in a lot of parts it reads like a textbook which is a turnoff for me. I enjoyed learning about a piece of Mississippi history, again lots of things I didn’t know that happened back then. Would recommend if you’re interested in the Civil Rights movement.

[D-Lonzo Callwood]

School assignment

This was a great read about Mississippi's history.
I chose 5 stars because it was a solid story. I thought it was a bit anticlimactic, but solid and informative nonetheless.

[Dave C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this memoir. One of my favs. How Eubanks wrote such a bitter-free memoir about growing up in Mississippi is one for the mystery shelf.

[Cathy Houston · Rating 4 out of 5]

an interesting perspective of growing up in Mississippi

[Jeni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, clean memoir (considering the subject matter) written by a black man who grew up in Mississippi in the 1960’s. Great read for tweens and teens.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a difficult book to read about the author's parents being spied on by the state of Mississippi. And I am still glad that I read it.

[Topher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eubanks's story is compelling and demonstrates how complex the negotiation of racial hatred in Mississippi in the 1960's could be. While he grew up largely shielded from and outside of the political racial malestrom that was the South during the Civil Rights era, he was thrust onto the scene when Mississippi was forced to finally comply with what now seems like the basic human right of integration in public schools...this some 12 years after Brown vs. Board of Education! Throughout Eubanks' story it is a remarkable feat of compassion that he could return to his home state--and the scene of violence, bigotry, injustice, and racism both overt and covert--and make his peace with it. The basis of his research is a taxpayer funded commission that funnelled money to a spying operation with the stated goal of keeping Mississippi segregated. As if this was not horrific enough, it sadly seemed to do its job quite well until its eventual demise in the hands of politicians who actually saw the writing on the wall. Eubanks is at his most engaging, I think, when he is explaining the grotesque racial history of the state and those who stubbornly cling to its vestiges (or the idea en masse). Less engrossing, but morally inspiring, is Eubanks' own personal struggles within that system and his encounters with some of its players while he is doing his research. One thing is clear: Mississippi now is different from Mississippi then. I say goodbye to all that.

[Carol E. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eubanks grew up in Mississippi. He was very young during the Civil Rights movement and so was only slightly aware of what was going on around him. Eubanks met Medgar Evers when he, Eubanks, was only 5 years old, for example. It wasn't until years later that he realized the importance of some of his early experiences.

When he grew up and left Mississippi, Eubanks had fond memories of the farm and the town where he grew up, having been mostly happy during those years.

Of course, as an adult Eubanks is aware of the violence that took place during the Civil Rights Movement. He goes back to Mississippi to research archives and explore the place that he remembered so fondly, attempting to find a link between his fond memories and the society as it was and is in the state of Mississippi. He finds horrendous acts which were perpetrated by both private citizens and by the government. He finds lists of "agitators" who were being spied on by the government as well as names of informants. He is shocked to find his own parents names on those lists of agitators, and at first he is not emotionally ready to dig deeper and figure out why. Eubanks takes a long, hard look at all of that difficult history, and also looks at the current times and measures the changes and successes he observes in Mississippi.

I give it 3 stars.. a good story of a life lived in the midst of very historic and turbulent times.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author seeks to come to terms with the Mississippi he enjoyed as a child and the Mississippi of the Civil Rights era during his childhood. This is a mixture of memoir and social and political history. A powerful story that is heartfelt and poignantly told.

His father was a black county agent and his mother was a schoolteacher and Ralph grew up on an eighty-acre farm on the outskirts of Mount Olive, Mississippi during the '60s. During that era, churches were burned, Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King were murdered, schools were integrated forcibly, and the state of Mississippi created an agency to spy on its citizens in an effort to maintain white supremacy. He reveals the complexities of the racial dividing lines at the time and the price many paid for what many now take for granted. He includes childhood stories that bring that time to life as well as interviews with those who were involved in the spying activities of the State Sovereignty Commission.

[RYCJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a stretch reading this account in a long time ago sequence, when the sequence of events still conjures so much remembrance, and values, and even a reworked system of beliefs and perspectives (albeit, not all negative) that I'd rather learn from, than turn away from. The mannerisms and culture I've come into contact with befriending people as refined as the Eubanks', who lived and lives in Mississippi, probes my mind wanting to know where these auspiciously well-bred customs derived. And honestly, this time, however many would like to forget, (to include those still bearing scars), was not so long ago.

Ever is A Long Time is a necessary rendering of empowering significance, one I commend Eubanks' for writing.

[Callie Stockman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The majority of this boo a solid 4 stars. I had never heard of the Sovereignty Commission, which I find strange since I lived in Mississippi most of my life and took a couple of Mississippi history courses. I liked discovering the files with Eubanks and I especially loved the interviews he did with those who were involved in the commission at the time. One interview was even with a former KKK member. That takes a lot of courage for black man from Mississippi to do.
The parts that fell flat for me were his pondering and musings on his relationship with Mississippi. It felt rehearsed and rehashed and devoid of honest reflection. He was so quick to forgive and find the good, which is so often a good thing, that I wonder if he just wanted to tie the book up in a nice little bow.

[Audrey Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feeling about this book... It was assigned to me for a class, and I didn't enjoy reading it. But there's something about either Eubanks' writing style, or the fact that he really focused exclusively on the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission that kept throwing me. There were parts of the book that I was really interested, and then not, and then i'd be interested again....adn then not. This just didn't keep my attention. Which is strange because there are a lot of poignant, strong stories and viewpoints in here... Like I said, I'm 100% behind the message that this book is sending out, just not sure how I felt about how the story was told.

[Gail · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a thoughtful memoir about growing up in Mississippi in the 60's. He remembers his family and town rather fondly, but investigates the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, which was a state FBI, investigating anyone who posed a threat to segregation. In spite of being quite non-political, his parents were on lists that the commission kept. He finds out information about those in his town who were informants for the commission. Basically, he writes about the process of reconstructing his conception of the geography of his childhood.