Mississippi

Charles Sullivan chronicled South MS history and its people, places and hurricanes

By Kat Bergeron

Historian Charles L. Sullivan, a name easily recognized by anyone interested in how the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s past connects to its present, died this weekend at age 80.

He leaves behind a legacy of books, college classroom demonstrations and public lectures that weave together the varied histories that formed the coastal and piney woods regions.

Sullivan’s sense of humor and his innate ability to transform what could be dry, boring local history into enjoyable but accurate storytelling, as well as eminently readable nonfiction, was his trademark.

“I really got obsessed with the entire story of the Coast and have tried to give it a fresh point of view,” Sullivan explained to the Sun Herald in 1987 at the publishing of the first edition of “Mississippi Gulf Coast: Portrait of a People.”

Charles Sullivan looks through the hilt of a sword belonging to Sgt. William Doyle of the 9th Connecticut Infantry which captured the flag to the 3rd Mississippi Infantry at a skirmish in Pass Christian. Sullivan will take the sword to Vicksburg next week for the unveiling of a 9th Connecticut monument at the Vicksburg National Military Park.
Charles Sullivan looks through the hilt of a sword belonging to Sgt. William Doyle of the 9th Connecticut Infantry which captured the flag to the 3rd Mississippi Infantry at a skirmish in Pass Christian. Sullivan will take the sword to Vicksburg next week for the unveiling of a 9th Connecticut monument at the Vicksburg National Military Park. TIM ISBELL SUN HERALD FILE

Before his 2006 retirement from the Perkinston Campus of Mississippi Gulf Community College, Sullivan’s history classes had waiting lists because of his unusual way of teaching that involved wearing uniforms, giving students medals for top work and his use of slides and videos in the era before mass digital technology.

Sullivan has numerous community and state history awards for his work at historic preservation and he was one of only four Coast people who was chairman of the Mississippi Historical Society.

Charles Sullivan donned a Confederate uniform as a re-enactor and sometimes for television as in the mini-series “North and South,” and when teaching Civil War history.
Charles Sullivan donned a Confederate uniform as a re-enactor and sometimes for television as in the mini-series “North and South,” and when teaching Civil War history. Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Foundation

After retirement from the classroom, he was named the college’s first professor emeritus and he expanded his college’s roll of “archivist” to help preserve and eventually make available to the public two vast photograph collections from the former Down South Magazine and the Dixie Press. Those and other donated postcards, photos and documents better help to visually tell the story of the Coast.

Sullivan is best remembered for his crusade to awaken the Coast population to how three centuries of hurricanes have shaped and reshaped the Coast and the need to heed evacuation notices. The first edition, “Hurricanes of the Mississippi Gulf Coast: 1717 to Present” was published in 1986.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005 devastated his beloved Coast, Sullivan felt compelled to update the book with “Hurricanes of the Mississippi Gulf Coast: Three Centuries of Destruction” 2009

Historian Charles Sullivan poses with the cannons from a boat that sunk in Biloxi Back Bay during a hurricane in 1722. The cannons are the oldest physical evidence of hurricanes on the Mississippi Coast.
Historian Charles Sullivan poses with the cannons from a boat that sunk in Biloxi Back Bay during a hurricane in 1722. The cannons are the oldest physical evidence of hurricanes on the Mississippi Coast. JOHN FITZHUGH Sun Herald file

His last big publication was “Gulf Coast Album: A Journey In Historic Photographs 1899-2011,” in which the photos begin in New Orleans, cross the Coast and to Mobile. In between he also did a massive look at how MGCC came to be as an agricultural high school and how its history is entwined with the history of the entire Coast.

Memorial services are Sept. 14 at First United Methodist Church of Wiggins, 422 Pine Avenue, Wiggins, A visitation is from 9:30-11 a.m., when the service begins. Bradford O’Keefe Funeral Home is handling the service.

Donations can be made to the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Archives or to the Charles and Jane Sullivan Scholarship Fund at MGCCC Foundation, PO Box 99, Perkinston, MS 39573.

A more in-depth look at Sullivan’s work, philosophies and contributions will appear in Sunday’s “Gulf Coast Chronicles” by Kat Bergeron.

Charles Sullivan spent thousands of hours going through old photographs, post cards and slides to find visual ways to document Mississippi Coast history.
Charles Sullivan spent thousands of hours going through old photographs, post cards and slides to find visual ways to document Mississippi Coast history. Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Foundation


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