David Sansing, who "dearly loved Mississippi and its history, and he wrote eloquently and often on the subject," died July 6, Mississippi Today reported. He was 86. A "kind, courtly gentleman," Sansing "was a scholar, a teacher, an author (of textbooks and history books), an orator, an encourager, and an avid listener."
One of Sansing's early students at the University of Mississippi was Richard Howorth, owner of Square Books in Oxford. He said: "I learned so much. David was so engaging, so enthusiastic about what he taught. And I remember that he invited students to come visit him in his office for a one-on-one conversation. I took him up on it and I remember him looking me in the eyes and saying, 'You are a person who could make a difference in Mississippi.' "
When Sansing officially retired from Ole Miss in 1994, he began writing The University of Mississippi: A Sesquicentennial History and "never quit working or writing," Mississippi Today noted. He wrote three books in the last five years of his life, including The Other Mississippi: A State in Conflict with Itself, which "was about our state's better nature, the one the rest of the world rarely hears or reads about."
Sansing's other titles include Making Haste Slowly: The Troubled History of Higher Education in Mississippi; Mississippi Governors: Soldiers Statesmen Scholars Scoundrels; and A Troubled History: The Governance of Higher Education in Mississippi.
Neil White, who published Sansing's last three books at the Nautilus Publishing Company, observed: "It's a cliché, now, to say a death is like 'a library burning down,' but in the case of David Sansing, it's true. No one knew more about Mississippi history, its characters, and the stories that comprised the complex narrative of this strange state.... David gave us all an example of how to live. His enthusiasm was unabashed, childlike in the very best way, until the very end."