Civil Rights Events

Mississippi 1962

James Meredith

 

James Meredith was born June 25, 1933, in Kosciusko, Mississippi. He was one of ten children of Roxy Patterson Meredith and Moses Cap, a poor farmer in Kosciusko. As a young child, Meredith became aware of racism. He would refuse the nickels and dimes that a local white man regularly gave to black children, calling the gifts degrading. More painful was the realization he made as a young man on a trip to visit relatives in Detroit, where he saw blacks and whites sharing the same public facilities. He rode the train home from this brush with integration, and when he arrived in Memphis, the conductor told him to leave the whites-only car. "I cried all the way home," Meredith later recalled, "and vowed to devote myself to changing the degrading conditions of black people." He also had other ambitions and goals. Ever since a childhood visit to a white doctor's office, he had harbored a dream of attending the University of Mississippi, the physician's alma mater.

 

After high school, in 1951, Meredith joined the U.S. Air Force. He rose to the rank of staff sergeant, earned credits toward a college degree, and served in the KOREAN WAR. Following his discharge in 1960, he attended the all-black Jackson State College, but the courses he wanted to take were offered only at the state university. As a 28-year-old, he followed with hopefulness the speeches of President John F. Kennedy, which promised greater enjoyment of opportunity for all U.S. citizens. Change was in the air, and many African Americans were heartened by the portents in Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address. On the same day that Kennedy became president, Meredith applied for admission to the University of Mississippi.

 

The school turned down his application. Mississippi still practiced SEGREGATION, and that meant that no African Americans could attend the all-white university. Even seven years after BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION, southern states resisted complying with the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that compulsory segregation was unconstitutional. Knowing that he had a constitutional right that the state refused to recognize, Meredith turned to the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. This arm of the civil rights organization, accustomed to fighting segregation cases, extended help to him. Meredith and his attorneys fought some 30 court actions against the state.

 

At last, a federal court ruled that a qualified student could not be denied admission on the ground of race. Meredith had won, but the court order infuriated segregationists. Playing to popular sentiment, Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett promised to stop Meredith. Barnett pressured the state legislature to give him authority over university admissions, a power that usually was exercised by the state college board (James 1-2).

 

In a TV address to the state, Governor Ross Barnett declares: "There is no case in history where the Caucasian race has survived social integration. We will not drink from the cup of genocide. ... We must either submit to the unlawful dictates of the federal government or stand up like men and tell them never! ... No school will be integrated in Mississippi while I am your Governor!" The state legislature and local officials across the state (all of them white, of course) echo and intensify his position.

 

 Meredith has no illusions. He later explains: "I was engaged in a war. I considered myself engaged in a war from day one. And my objective was to force the federal government — the Kennedy administration at that time — into a position where they would have to use the United States military force to enforce my rights as a citizen." (James Integrates 1).

 

By September of 1962, the situation had escalated to the point where President John F. Kennedy had to get involved. While not overly concerned with civil rights before 1960, JFK had won his election largely thanks to African American support and was quickly taking a greater interest in desegregation. He sent Chief U.S. Marshal J.P. McShane to escort James Meredith into the school. Three times J.P. McShane and a small group of unarmed deputies tried to enroll Meredith at Ole Miss. Three times they were blocked by armed state troopers sent by Ross Barnett (James Enrollment 1).

 

Cars driven by whites parade through Mississippi towns with confederate flags waving and bumper stickers proclaiming: "The South shall rise again!" Retaliatory violence against Blacks flares across the state as Black men, women, and children are attacked, beaten, and shot at. Armed students are posted at Tougaloo to defend the campus from KKK nightriders. Despite the terror, Blacks are inspired by Meredith's courage and defiance. His struggle to integrate 'Ole Miss becomes a state-wide confrontation between whites intent on maintaining the old order of racial segregation and Blacks determined to be free and equal citizens (James Integrates 2).

 

In a series of telephone calls in late September 1962 President Kennedy tried to convince Governor Barnett to let James Meredith enter the campus to register for classes. … If Kennedy couldn't sway Barnett with words, he would have to use federal troops, a move that could provoke violence and cost Kennedy precious votes in the South.

 

The stand-off had a Civil War flavor. An old-style Southern Democrat, Ross Barnett declared that Mississippi segregation laws trumped Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. President Kennedy was also a Democrat, but a young, bred-in-the-bone Yankee from Massachusetts. Having won the presidency by a tiny margin, Kennedy needed the continued loyalty of Southern Democrats. But Barnett's repeated defiance of federal law forced JFK into a risky confrontation.

 

From September 15 to September 30, Bobby Kennedy and Ross Barnett had more than a dozen phone conversations.

 

Historian Bill Doyle, author of American Insurrection: The Battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962, says that Ross Barnett knew integration was inevitable, but needed a way to let James Meredith into Ole' Miss without losing face with his white, pro-segregation supporters. "Ross Barnett desperately wanted the Kennedys to flood Mississippi with combat troops because that's the only way Ross Barnett could tell his white segregationist backers, 'Hey I did everything I could, I fought them, but to prevent bloodshed in the end I made a deal,'" Doyle says.

 

On September 27, 1962 Bobby Kennedy and Ross Barnett agreed on an extraordinary plan: James Meredith would arrive at the Ole' Miss campus in Oxford accompanied by at least 25 armed Federal Marshals (at the time, Marshals were Justice Department agents normally used to transport prisoners, not trained for combat). Ross Barnett would make a show of blocking Meredith, but be forced to step aside when the Marshals drew their guns.

 

Robert F. Kennedy: I will send the Marshals that I have available up there in Memphis and there will be about 25 or 30 of them and they will come with Mr. Meredith and they will arrive at wherever the gate is and I will have the head Marshal pull a gun and I will have the rest of them have their hands on their guns and their holsters. And then as I understand it, they will go through and get in and you will make sure that law and order is preserved and that no harm will be done to Mr. McShane and Mr. Meredith.

 

Ross Barnett: Oh, yes.

 

RFK: And then I think you will see that’s accomplished?

 

RB: …  I was under the impression that they were all going to pull their guns. This could be very embarrassing. We got a big crowd here and if one pulls his gun and we all turn it would be very embarrassing. Isn’t it possible to have them all pull their guns?

 

RFK: I hate to have them all draw their guns, as I think it could create harsh feelings. Isn't it sufficient if I have one man draw his gun and the others keep their hands on their holsters?

 

RB: They must all draw their guns. Then they should point their guns at us and then we could step aside. This could be very embarrassing down here for us. It is necessary.

 

By the end of the day, the Mississippi governor and the attorney general decided to scrap their plan because it was too dangerous. A mob had gotten word of Meredith's imminent arrival and had begun to descend on Oxford. Barnett and Kennedy feared the staged showdown would spark a riot.

 

When Bobby Kennedy could not get Governor Barnett to comply with the order of the Supreme Court, President Kennedy stepped in. On September 29 and 30, 1962, JFK had a series of conversations with Governor Barnett. He hoped to manage the crisis by telephone. Their first call took place at 2 p.m. on Friday, September 29.

 

President Kennedy apparently thought Barnett was a pushover. After the call, he turned to his brother and said, "You've been fighting a sofa pillow all week." But JFK was wrong. According to civil rights historian Taylor Branch, Ross Barnett had the president and attorney general wrapped around his finger.

 

“They're never sure whether he's making a fool of them or they're making a fool of him. But they know as the evenings go on, they feel less and less in control, so the suspicion starts to rise that maybe Barnett's making a fool of them."

 

While Barnett and Kennedy were secretly negotiating by phone, radio stations across the South were blaring bulletins about the situation. White racists were grabbing their guns and heading for Oxford.

 

Rather than send army troops to escort Meredith to Ole' Miss, President Kennedy dispatched scores of Federal Marshals to Mississippi - lightly armed men clad awkwardly in suits, ties and gas masks. At the same time, JFK wanted Ross Barnett to assure him that Mississippi patrolmen would help maintain law and order as the threat of a race riot on the university campus in Oxford grew.

 

Despite Governor Barnett's promise [that highway patrolmen would maintain order], he did not maintain order. Though he'd been privately negotiating with the White House, Barnett made a defiant speech at a Saturday night Ole' Miss football game. He was cheered on by some 40,000 fans.

 

The next day, September 30, 1962, hundreds of outraged protestors flooded Oxford to block Meredith's expected arrival. At 12:45 p.m., Bobby Kennedy made an angry call to Barnett. The attorney general warned that if Barnett didn't let Meredith register, President Kennedy would expose their secret telephone negotiations in a televised speech scheduled that evening.

 

The attorney general's threat worked. Barnett knew that if his segregationist supporters learned he had made a covert deal with the Kennedys, his political career would be over. So, to keep the secret, Barnett agreed to the Kennedy plan: get Meredith safely lodged on campus that evening so he could register for classes Monday morning.

 

On Sunday, September 30, 1962 at 6 p.m., James Meredith was escorted onto the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford by a convoy of Federal Marshals. While he got settled in one of the school dorms, more than 2,500 angry students and outside agitators swarmed around the main campus building, the Lyceum. President Kennedy was informed of Meredith's arrival and went on national television that night to announce this apparent victory and explain that it had been achieved without the use of federal soldiers. He reminded viewers that, "Americans are free, in short, to disagree with the law but not to disobey it." Kennedy continued: "For in a government of laws and not of men, no man, however prominent or powerful, and no mob, however unruly or boisterous, is entitled to defy a court of law" (John 1-6).

 

White students surround Meredith's dorm and the registration office. They chant: "Two-four-one-three, we hate Kennedy! Kill the nigger-loving bastards!" Determined to lynch Meredith, armed Klansmen from around the state and as far away as Selma and Birmingham Alabama swarm into Oxford. The crowd, a volatile mixture of KKK, students, and townsmen, grows to more than 2,000. The mob is led by former Army Major-General Edwin Walker, who had been forced to retire when he refused to stop distributing racist hate literature to his soldiers. They attack the Marshals guarding Meredith with bricks, bottles, guns, and fire bombs. Mississippi state troopers charged with maintaining "law and order" disappear, leaving the Marshals to face the horde alone.

 

 

The Marshals desperately try to hold back the lynch mob with tear gas. Half of them are wounded, 30 of them are shot. The crowd lashes out at journalists — they murder French reporter Paul Guihard. A second man [a local jukebox repairman] is also killed under circumstances that remain unclear to this day. With tear gas running low and the raging horde closing in, the Marshals plea for reinforcements. President Kennedy calls up Troop E of the Mississippi National Guard, but only 67 men respond. Led by Captain "Chooky" Falkner (nephew of author William Faulkner) they try to rescue the Marshals and Meredith. They are not enough.

 

As the battle rages, Kennedy finally — at long last — sends in the United States Army to restore order. An officer later recalled:

 

“As we were marching up there, they would throw rocks at us and call us nigger lovers. Wanted to know if we were there to put our nigger brother in college. There was a lot of gasoline burning, a lot of automobiles burning on campus. Every concrete bench was broken, being thrown at us. I spent time in Vietnam. I'll take that any time over 'Ole Miss.”

 

To appease southern whites, Attorney General Robert Kennedy secretly orders that the units assigned to 'Ole Miss be re-segregated so that armed Black GIs won't be patrolling the streets of Oxford. Some 4,000 Black soldiers are humiliated, disarmed, removed from their units, and reassigned to KP and garbage duty. Black soldiers can be sent to fight and die in Vietnam, but they are not allowed to protect Black citizens in Mississippi from mob violence (James Integrates 3-5).

 

Though President Kennedy and Governor Barnett talked several more times, the rioting in Oxford forced both men to do what they wanted most to avoid: Barnett had to step aside without his valiant last stand, and Kennedy had to storm Mississippi with U.S. Army troops. (John 6-7).

 

Being for integration meant being on the wrong side of the powerful White Citizens' Councils, the Ku Klux Klan and the State Sovereignty Commission, a spy agency.

 

White professors on campus who supported Meredith's admission faced intimidation. Marleah Kaufman Hobbs' husband, a political science professor, got death threats. She was a fine arts grad student at the time. Now 89 years old, she remembers when the riots broke out.

 

"That night the cracking of the guns, the planes flying overhead bringing in more National Guard — we didn't sleep at all that night. It was the changing of the world," she says.

 

Bishop Duncan Gray Jr., then an Episcopal priest in Oxford, tried to squelch a mob that had gathered atop a Confederate monument on campus.

 

"Of course, they grabbed me and pulled me down. I'd been hit a few times before, but that's when I took the roughest beating," says Gray, who is white.

 

Gray says the night forever changed the dynamics in Mississippi's struggle to preserve white supremacy.

 

"It was a horrible thing, and I'm sorry we had to go through that, but it certainly marked a very definite turning point. And maybe a learning experience for some people," he says. "I think even the ardent segregationists didn't want to see violence like that again" (Elliott 1-2).

 

The French journalist Paul Guihard, on assignment for the London Daily Sketch … was found dead behind the Lyceum building with a gunshot wound to the back. One hundred-sixty US Marshals, one-third of the group, were injured in the melee, and 40 soldiers and National Guardsmen were wounded.

 

On Monday morning, October 1, 1962, Meredith walked across the battered campus and registered for classes.

 

The US government fined Barnett $10,000 and sentenced him to jail for contempt, but the charges were later dismissed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

 

Many students harassed Meredith during his two semesters on campus but others accepted him.

 

According to first-person accounts chronicled in Nadine Cohodas’ book The Band Played Dixie (1997), students living in Meredith’s dorm bounced basketballs on the floor just above his room through all hours of the night. Other students ostracized him: when Meredith walked into the cafeteria for meals, the students eating would turn their backs. If Meredith sat at a table with other students, all of whom were white, the students would immediately get up and go to another table (Denise 1-2).

 

Hunter Bear wrote: Meredith had a terrible time up there. Medgar [Evers] was on the phone constantly bolstering him. I was sitting in Medgar's office while he was doing that. Meredith was befriended by a few courageous white people on the campus, — notably Jim Silver of the History Department, who later became a very good friend of ours and wrote the book Mississippi, the Closed Society. (Interview 19).

 

When Meredith graduated from Ole Miss in August 1963 (with a BA in political science), he wore a segregationist's "Never" button upside down on his black gown.

 

He later wrote: “I noticed in the hallway a black janitor and I wondered why he was standing there. And he had a mop under his arm. And as I passed him, he turned his body, twisted his body, and touched me with the mop handle. Now this delivered a message, and the message was clear: ‘We are looking after you while you are here’" (James Integrates 6). 

 

Works cited:

 

Denise, Carletta.  “October 1, 1962: James Meredith Enters The University Of Mississippi.”  Black Then: Discovering Our History.  October 1, 2018.  Web.  https://blackthen.com/%E2%80%8Boctober-1-1962-james-meredith-enters-the-university-of-mississippi/

 

Elliott, Debbie.  “Integrating Ole Miss: A Transformative, Deadly Riot.”  NPR.  October 1, 2012.  Web.  https://www.npr.org/2012/10/01/161573289/integrating-ole-miss-a-transformative-deadly-riot

 

“Interview: Hunter Bear (John Salter).”  Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement.  Web.  https://www.crmvet.org/nars/hunteri.htm

“James Howard Meredith - Further Readings.”  University of Mississippi Free Legal Encyclopedia.  Web.  http://law.jrank.org/pages/8541/Meredith-James-Howard.html

 

“James Meredith Integrates 'Ole Miss (Sept-Oct).”  Civil Rights Movement History 1962.  Web.  https://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis62.htm#1962jackson

 

“James Meredith's Enrollment in Ole Miss: Riot & Reaction.”  Study.com.  Web.  https://study.com/academy/lesson/james-merediths-enrollment-in-ole-miss-riot-reaction.html

 

“John F. Kennedy: The Mississippi Crisis.”  American Public Media.  Web.  http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/prestapes/a5.html