NORTH MISSISSIPPI 459 PHOTO COURTESY OF MCKESSON CORPORATION to sit quietly while “the South, not just Mississippi, but all the South, wreck and ruin itself twice in less than 100 years, over the Negro question.” After lamenting the hideous stereotypes of white Southerners in the national media, Faulkner denounced both those calling for forced segregation and those calling for forced integration. Faulkner was like a man yelling “Stop” in the middle of a riot. He pleaded for time for white Southerners to catch their breath and reevaluate. “The white Southerner must realize on his own, at his own speed, that he himself ‘faces an obsolescence in his own land which only he can cure’if he is to have any peace.” William Faulkner died July 6, 1962, and was buried in Oxford’s St. MCKESSON McKesson Corporation, currently ranked fifth on the Fortune 500 list, is a global leader in healthcare supply chain management solutions, retail pharmacy, community oncology and specialty care, and healthcare information tech- nology. McKesson partners with pharmaceutical manufacturers, providers, pharmacies, governments, and other or- ganizations in healthcare to help provide products and services in a safe and cost-effective manner. Headquartered in San Francisco, McKesson employs approximately 70,000 people across more than sixteen countries. In 2010, McKesson Corporation, along with the state of Mississippi, announced its plan to establish a location in Olive Branch. John Figueroa, then-president of McKesson’s U.S. Pharmaceutical Distribution, said of the company’s plans for the $115 million, 600,000-square-foot facility in Mississippi: “This brand new facility will allow us to more efficiently serve our growing customer needs with the most advanced material handling systems available and will be seen as a model for McKesson’s other distribution centers.” Today, the state-of-the-art logistics center in Olive Branch employs more than 350 full-time employees responsible for the distribution of pharmaceuticals to locations across the United States. Peter’s Cemetery, a bare few months before the University and the whole of white Mississippi faced the greatest challenge to its “way of life,” the admission of the first African American student at Ole Miss. The man to break the color barrier at Ole Miss, James Meredith was a native Mississippian, born in Kosciusko, Attala County, to parents who were substantial landowners. An Air Force veteran, Meredith was enigmatic to many; he was a man driven by his own unique sense of mission. Inspired by the inauguration of John F. Kennedy and the promise of increased support for civil rights for African Americans, Meredith wrote to Ole Miss for a catalog and application on January 21, 1961.