The Riverside Press-Enterprise
James Meredith honored 60 years after integration
JACKSON, MISS. >> The University of Mississippi is paying tribute to 89-year-old James Meredith 60 years after white protesters erupted into violence as he became the first Black student to enroll in what was then a bastion of Deep South segregation.
As it has done on other 10-year anniversaries of integration, the university is hosting celebrations and academic events. Meredith was honored Saturday during the Ole Miss-kentucky football game, receiving a framed Ole Miss jersey with the number 62 — the year he integrated the university. The ceremony happened two days after he attended attended the Rebels’ practice to speak to players.
“He came and revolutionized our thinking. He came to open our closed society,” Donald Cole, who retired in 2018 as the university’s assistant provost and head of multicultural affairs, said during a celebration Wednesday night.
The enigmatic Meredith, who lives in Jackson, has long resisted the label of civil rights leader, as if civil rights are separate from other human rights.
He says his effort to enter Ole Miss was his own battle to conquer white supremacy.
Meredith’s being honored at the Ole Miss-kentucky game was an ironic echo of history.
Two days before Meredith enrolled on the Oxford campus in 1962, racebaiting Gov. Ross Barnett worked a white crowd into a frenzy at a football stadium in Jackson.
Ole Miss fans waved Confederate flags to support their Rebels over the Kentucky Wildcats — and to defy any move toward racial integration.
“I love Mississippi,” Barnett declared. “I love her people! Our customs! I love and I respect our heritage!”
The next evening, Barnett quietly reached an agreement with U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy to let Meredith enter Mississippi’s oldest public university. Meredith already had a federal court order.
White mobs of students and outsiders erupted when he arrived on the leafy campus with the protection of more than 500 federal law enforcement officers. The attorney general’s brother, President John F. Kennedy, deployed National Guard troops to quell the violence, and Meredith enrolled on Oct. 1.
During the event Wednesday at the university, Meredith told an audience: “In my opinion, this is the best day I ever lived. But there’s some more truth. Celebration is good. I don’t think there’s anybody in this house or in the state of Mississippi that think the problem has been solved.”