George Peabody Hall

Located on the University of Mississippi campus, George Peabody Hall currently houses the University's Department of Psychology. Built in 1913, the building has played a role in university history throughout the 20th century. African American folk artist M.B. Mayfield unofficially took classes here, despite the university being strictly closed to African American students due to segregation. This training proved to be invaluable to his career as an artist. African American student James Meredith would later enroll at the school in 1962, officially crossing the color line. He would attend one of his first classes at the university in Peabody Hall.

Peabody Hall is an academic building on campus at the University of Mississippi. Constructed in 1913, the building was designed by architect Bem Price and its architecture reflects a Classical Revival style. Early in its lifetime, it housed the School of Education, the College of Liberal Art, and the Department of Mathematics. In 1956, the building transitioned into the home of the Department of Psychology, a function it still maintains today. During its early years, the building served as the original home for the University’s ROTC program, that is until World War II disrupted university life. Along with several other buildings on the Circle, Peabody Hall would sustain damage during the integration of the University of Mississippi in 1962. Beginning on the night of September 30, 1962, segregationists rioted in opposition to the enrollment of James Meredith, the first African American man to officially attend the university. Once the national guard intervened and order had been restored, Meredith took his first class in Peabody Hall, one of the aforementioned math classes. Owing to its historical significance, Peabody Hall was added as a part of the Lyceum - The Circle Historic District which attained designation as a national historic landmark on October 6, 2008.

M.B. Mayfield took his first steps on the University of Mississippi campus in 1949 in front of Peabody Hall, where his bus deposited him. He had been sought out by Dr. Purser, an art professor at Ole Miss because of his artistic ability. Mayfield would later refer to Dr. Purser as his friend. Then, hired to work as a janitor, it was here, on the top floor of Peabody Hall, where Mayfield would sit in a broom closet with his easel and art supplies and watch and listen to the art lessons through the cracked door. In his autobiography, Mayfield recalled that this broom closet would also act as a “break” room for Mayfield and he would often spend his “breaks” inside painting and being reminded that he was “interested in an art career” above all. While “strictly on a segregated basis” Mayfield took the lessons just “as seriously as the other students did” and what he learned during these lessons only fueled his artistic ability and talent. His presence was intended to remain a hidden secret shared only between Dr. Purser and Mayfield himself. However, the other students began to realize that Mayfield was not “just a ‘handyman’” and that his presence served a different purpose. Despite their racial differences in a time of racial segregation, many of the other students almost seemed to accept Mayfield as “one of them.” Mayfield detailed how they were “continuously hospitable in different ways” towards him and shared with him their art supplies and offered him their moral support. The very same classroom where Dr. Purser conducted these art lessons would be the same room where James Meredith, the man credited as being the first African American student to attend the University of Mississippi, would attend math class more than ten years later in 1962.

Entry by Abigail Browning and Walker Bray

OXFORD CAMPUS AND UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS, University of Mississippi Catalog. Accessed April 28th 2022. https://catalog.olemiss.edu/university/buildings.

MDAH. Peabody Hall, Mississippi Department of Archives. October 6th 2008. Accessed April 28th 2022. https://www.apps.mdah.ms.gov/Public/prop.aspx?id=32431&view=facts&y=720.

Mayfield, M.B.. The Baby Who Crawled Backwards: An Autobiography, p. 16. Memphis, TN. Langford & Associates, 2003.