Journalism Professor Featured in Podcast about Civil Rights Murder

Kathleen Wickham discusses unsolved case in international production

OXFORD, Miss – University of Mississippi journalism professor Kathleen Wickham is featured in an international podcast distributed by Agence France-Presse on the unsolved 1962 civil rights murder of AFP reporter Paul Guihard at Ole Miss.

Guihard was shot in the back from a foot away during a riot that accompanied the enrollment of James Meredith at UM. The murder remains unsolved. The two-part podcast, “Who Killed Paul Guihard?” is scheduled for release today (Sept. 30), the 57th anniversary of his death.

Wickham was interviewed for the podcast in the spring while teaching at the University of Rennes in Brittany.

Guihard spent his teenage years in St. Malo on the Brittany coast while the city was under German occupation during WWII. He is featured in her book “We Believe We Were Immortal: Twelve Reporters Who Covered the 1962 Integration Crisis at Ole Miss.”

Wickham is joined on the podcast by Sidna Brower, the 1962 Daily Mississippian editor; Alain Guihard, Paul’s brother, and Hank Klibanoff, co-author of “The Race Beat.” Jeffrey Reed, sound engineer for Thacker Mountain Radio, provided background audio.

The Ole Miss student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists installed a memorial bench between Farley Hall and the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College in honor of Guihard in 2009.

The following year, SPJ named the Ole Miss campus a national historic site in journalism. At the time, Wickham was chapter adviser.

The podcast will be aired/posted by Mississippi Today, Mississippi Public Radio and campus radio station WUMS 92.1. Click here to listen.