Twelve thousand residents and eleven thousand students enable OXFORD , an enclave of wealth in a predominantly poor region, to blend rural charm with a busy nightlife. Its central square is archetypal smalltown America, but the leafy streets have a vaguely European air - the town named itself after the English city as part of its campaign to persuade the University of Mississippi , known as Ole Miss, to locate its main campus here.

It's an undeniably pretty, appealing place today, but this leafy campus was, in September 1962, the site of the most bitter display of racial hatred seen in Mississippi. After eighteen months of legal and political wrangling, federal authorities ruled that James Meredith should be allowed to enroll as the first black student at Ole Miss. The news that Meredith had been sneaked into college by federal troops sparked a riot that left three dead and 160 injured. Despite constant threats, Meredith graduated the following year, wearing a "NEVER" badge (the segregationist slogan of Governor Ross Barnett) upside down. The university boasts a Confederate monument, but no statue, not even a plaque, mentioning Meredith. However, in recent years a group of motivated students drew attention to the lack of a civil rights monument, and development is under way of one which will include Meredith.

The Blues Archive (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm; tel 662/232-7753) on campus holds thousands of recordings and B.B. King's personal memorabilia, while the Center for the Study of Southern Culture looks at Southern folkways (Mon-Fri 8.00am-5pm; free; tel 662/915-5993).

From Ole Miss, a ten-minute walk through lush Bailey Woods leads to secluded Rowan Oak , the former home of novelist William Faulkner , preserved as it was on the day he died in July 1962 (Tues-Fri 10am-noon & 2-4pm, Sat 10am-4pm, Sun noon-4pm; free). The fictional Deep South town of Jefferson in Yoknapatawpha County, where the Nobel Prize-winner set his major works, was based heavily on Oxford and its environs. Each year, in the last week in July, the University holds a Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference (for more info call 662/915-5993).

In town, a walk around the square brings you to Neilson's, a delightfully old-fashioned department store (the oldest in the south in fact), little changed since 1897. You can pick up a piece of quirky Mississippi folk art at one of the offbeat giftshops there, or join the students sipping lattes and reading on the balcony of the exemplary Square Books, at Van Buren and Lamar streets.