Mourners at the 1968 funeral of Martin Luther King in Atlanta, Georgia, US. Photo by Constantine Manos / Magnum Photos Thirty years ago, when I taught history at the University of Mississippi, I learned three things in pretty short order. First, that no matter how cordial the exchange, Southern black people and Southern white people were suspicious of each other. And northern Yankees. Second, that when white Southerners talked about “the War” they meant 1861, not 1941. Third, that it was not a war about racism and slavery but “the secession of the states” (a phrase I’d never heard before)....