Interview with Simkins biographer, James Humphreys

By Kate Lochte

Murray, KY – Assistant professor of southern history at Murray State, North Carolinian James S. Humphreys, has written a biography of the late southern historian Francis Butler Simkins, a Guggenheim fellowship winner in 1952. Simkins' life was complicated by twists and turns in his professional life, his health and his opinions about race relations. Kate Lochte spoke with Humphreys about Simkins.

Murray State assistant professor of history James S. Humphreys speaks of historian Francis Butler Simkins who died at age 69 in 1966. Simkins impressed colleagues as both brilliant and contradictory. Health and lifestyle irregularities led him to fall asleep at inopportune moments, resulting once in a job dismissal. Humphreys' biography of the once prominent, eccentric scholar "Francis Butler Simkins: A Life" is a publication of University Press of Florida.