Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with journalist, author and teacher Curtis Wilkie to talk about his long career and his new book, When Evil Lived in Laurel: The “White Knights” and the Murder of Vernon Dahmer. 

A 1963 graduate of University of Mississippi (He drew a map of what happened the night of the riot that is in the Ole Miss archives), Wilkie began his career at the Clarksdale Press Register covering the Civil Rights movement. From there, he went on to cover eight presidential campaigns (He was one of the Boys on the Bus during the 1972 Nixon Campaign.), being the White House correspondent during the Carter and Reagan administrations and then covering the Middle East for the Boston Globe.

After his retirement  from the Globe, Wilkie became a professor and fellow at the Overby Center where he taught until recently.  He is the also the author of several books including Dixie: A Personal Odyssey Through Events That Shaped the Modern South, The Fall of the House of Zeus: The Rise and Ruin of America’s Most Powerful Trial Lawyer, The Road to Camelot: Inside JFK’s Five-year Campaign (Co-authored with Tom Oliphant) and Assassins, Eccentrics, Politicians, and Other Persons of Interest: Fifty Pieces from the Road.

A frequent guest on CSPAN, Wilkie is a master storyteller who has helped document history for over a half century. 


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Marshall Ramsey, a nationally recognized editorial cartoonist, shares his cartoons and travels the state as Mississippi Today’s Editor-At-Large. He’s also host of a weekly statewide radio program and a television program on Mississippi Public Broadcasting and is the author of several books. Marshall is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and a 2019 recipient of the University of Tennessee Alumni Professional Achievement Award.