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Paper Man
Paper Man by Jim Abbott
by Jim Abbott
  
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Event with Jim Abbott
Tuesday, September 15th
Signing at 5:00 PM
Reading at 5:30 PM

Only books purchased from Lemuria will be signed.

Hardback. Signed.
Price: $34.95


Availability: Pre-Order
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Description
 
Oxford, MS: Nautilus Publishing (September 8, 2026)

Hardback. Signed.

New in decorated boards.

Jim Abbott was destined to reckon with racial awakenings the 1960s Mississippi Delta. He graduated from all-white Greenwood High School in 1962, naïve of and unprepared for what he would soon experience at Ole Miss his freshman year during the James Meredith riots. He resented the criticisms his state received for its racist policies. And he held racist feelings himself.

But fate intervened. Jim witnessed cruelties carried out against those getting Blacks to register to vote, he had encounters with Duke Ellington and Senator Robert Kennedy, and he served in Vietnam with fellow Black countrymen. Gradually, his views changed. And, at age 26, he became editor of a local newspaper in Indianola, Mississippi, the birthplace of the White Citizen’s Council.

Jim’s recollections over nearly four decades of searching for the truth in the Mississippi Delta is a testament to true transformation — and a stark reminder of the importance of independent presses in small-town America.

Jim Abbott is the retired editor/publisher of the Enterprise-Tocsin newspaper (Indianola/Sunflower County Mississippi). He is a native of Greenwood. He earned two degrees from the University of Mississippi: one in Business and another in Journalism. He served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam in 1968-69, part of that time as an Army Photographer/ News Correspondent and was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for his military journalism/photography. He became editor in Indianola in 1970. He is a past president of the Mississippi Press Association and member of the MPA’s Hall of Fame. He received the coveted Silver Em Award from the UM Journalism School in 2003. He retired in 2008 after 38 years as editor. Abbott was on the founding team/board of the B.B. King Museum. He and his wife Cynthia now live in Oxford. They have two children and five grandchildren.

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