Oral history with Mr. Hugh H. Clegg, native Mississippian, former assistant director of the FBI and educator - Page 1 |
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Oral history with Mr. Hugh H. Clegg, native Mississippian, former assistant director of the FBI and educator
This oral history is provided through a cooperative project of University of Southern Mississippi Libraries and USM's Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage.
Funding provided by a National Leadership Grant for Libraries from the Institute for Museum and Library Services
The transcript is presented here for reference purposes only. Interviews in this collection are protected by copyright. PERMISSION TO PUBLISH MUST BE REQUESTED from the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage. Please call ( 601) 266- 4574 for more information.
Biography
Mr. Hugh Clegg was born July 17, 1903, in Mathiston, Mississippi, the first of five children born to James Monroe Clegg and the former Sally Delma Conley. Mr. Clegg recalls that his parents " Couldn't find any other name they thought was good enough for their little baby, so they gave him the privilege of adding an initial or a name when he grew up." He added the initial H. only to have a middle initial and without giving it a name.
Mr. Clegg's youth was spent in rural Mississippi. His education through high school was in the Mathiston public schools, and he recalls " One of my teachers urged four or five of us in the eighth grade to go to Walthall, our county seat, and take an eighth grade examination which was offered for those who wanted to volunteer to take it. . . I remember one of the questions: " Name and locate all the bones of the body." In the oral history, Mr. Clegg recalls many aspects of his elementary and secondary school years.
After graduation from high school, his father Jim Clegg supported young Hugh's quest for higher education and he matriculated and graduated from Millsaps College, in Jackson, Mississippi. His reminiscences of that experience also add completeness to the oral history recorded with him. Hugh Clegg decided to study law and selected George Washington Law School, in Washington D. C., because there he could find a job which would enable him to go to school. He worked at the Library of Congress, but recalls that he often would go to listen to the great orators in the United States Senate, prior to going on to his work in the Library of Congress. He gives his impressions of some of the great debaters in that deliberative body.
Being domiciled in the George Washington chapter house of his college fraternity, he came into contact with FBI agents who occasionally stayed there. As his studies were approaching completion, he decided to seek a job with the then small agency, and obtained his application from the director, J. Edgar Hoover, personally. He recalls that, " I went into see him one morning at ten- thirty; that night at eight I received my diploma, my degree in law."
Mr. Clegg's intention was to serve with the FBI for thirty months in order to gain experience, and then to go into the practice of law. At the end of his self- imposed thirty months, " I felt that there was no law being practiced either as interesting or as valuable to society as the job I was doing. So, I stayed there over mus- coh. cleggh. doc Page 1 of 134
Object Description
| Title | Oral history with Mr. Hugh H. Clegg, native Mississippian, former assistant director of the FBI and educator |
| Description | Oral history.; Four interviews conducted on October 1, 2, and 23 of 1975, and July 1, 1976 with Mr. Hugh Clegg at his home in Anguilla, Mississippi. Clegg was born on July 17, 1898 in Mathiston, Mississippi. Clegg graduated from Millsaps College, in Jackson, Mississippi and then went on to George Washington Law School, in Washington, D.C. In 1926, Clegg joined the FBI where he remained for 27 years eventually raising to the position of Assistant Director. After retiring from the FBI in 1954 Clegg accepted a position with the University of Mississippi, in Oxford, Mississippi. Clegg served as Assistant to the Chancellor at Ole Miss during the tumultuous events of the 1960s. The most well known event to occur while Clegg was at Ole Miss was the James Meredith conflict. He explains a plan, which he advanced to enable the two sides to reach agreement without either being embarrassed, but the drastic tactics had already been agreed on. |
| Date of interview | 1975 October 1 (1st interview); 1975 October 2 (2nd interview); 1975 October 23 (3rd interview); 1976 July 1 (4th interview) |
| Interviewer | Garvey, Mike. |
| Coverage (time period) | (circa 1861)-1975 (primarily 1930s-1960s) |
| Resource type | Text |
| Format | Digital reproduction of a 134-page document. |
| Language | English |
| Publisher |
University of Southern Mississippi. Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage. University of Southern Mississippi Libraries. (electronic version) |
| Contributors | Electronic version made available through a National Leadership Grant for Libraries from the Institute for Museum and Library Services. |
| Notes | This item is part of the Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital Archive. |
| Rights | Copyright protected. Use of materials from this collection beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. Permission to publish or reproduce is required. |
| Contributing institution | Mississippi Oral History Program of the University of Southern Mississippi. |
| Digital repository | University of Southern Mississippi Digital Collections. |
| Digital collection | Oral History. |
| File size | 885.938 KB |
| File extension | |
| Identifier | mus-coh.cleggh |
| File name | mus-coh.cleggh.pdf |
