James Meredith and the University of Mississippi, Research Paper Example

There were many important firsts of the civil rights movement, including Rosa Parks’s famous refusal to give up her seat, the march on Washington, Brown vs. the Board of Education, and Thurgood Marshall’s election to the Supreme Court each of them, having an impact on the patchwork of American culture. In this cornucopia of events, the life of James Meredith is one of note. Meredith was the first African American admitted into the University of Mississippi, and as such, he paved the way for the men and women who followed him.

Though he viewed the concept of civil rights with disdain, James Meredith is one of the pioneers of the movement. He is noted as saying, “Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind”. At the time of this statement his call for equality and unification for all American citizens was a message that resonated loudly with civil rights community. His later life has left many of his former civil rights in confusion but none can deny the impact of his struggle on the civil rights movement. Or as he put it the freedom to “assert [his] rights as a citizen”(Byrd)

James Howard Meredith (born JH Meredith)  was born on June 25, 1933 on a farm, in Attala County in the heart of Mississippi, several miles outside of the city of Kosciusko. JH or J-Boy as he was called at the time was the seventh child for his father and the first for his mother. He spent the better part of his childhood on this 84-acre farm, in great poverty, living in a house without running water and few amenities. As he recalled in a later letter to the US Department of Justice he walked over four miles a day to school for eleven years.

During this time, he had the fortune of visiting Kosciusko with his parents primarily to go to the market and to visit the doctor. As the story goes on one of these visits, he noticed that his father’s doctor had obtained a degree from the University of Mississippi known affectionately as Ole’ Miss.  At this moment, JH decided he wanted to attend that same school.

After his junior year of high school, JH’s parents shipped him off to St. Petersburg, Florida to live with his uncle Cliff. In Florida, he attended Gibbs High School; this was an important step on his road to accomplishing his dreams because the standards were much higher than his former schools in Mississippi.  The same year, J-Boy, who had become a skilled writer, submitted an essay for the American Legion Essay Contest entitled “Why I am proud to be an American”. Consequently he won 1st place was photographed with the two runner-ups for the front page of the St. Petersburg Times newspaper. In 1951, JH graduated from high school and enlisted in the Air force as James Howard Meredith. During the course of his nine years of military service, James took classes at colleges close to the bases where he was stationed including: New Mexico Western College, the University of Kansas, the University of Maryland campus satellite in Japan, and the Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. After receiving an honorable discharge from the Air Force in 1960 Meredith returned to Mississippi, with his wife Mary June and his first child John, and enrolled at  Jackson State University, an all black university.

In his years traveling and living abroad James’ dream of attending Ole Miss, lay dormant, but was kept alive in his relentless pursuit of education. While he could have simply finished his degree at Jackson State he felt that his ambitions would be dampened if he didn‘t have the same educational opportunity as his white counterparts.  As he put it “before [he] could engage in business at the level [he] desired the, system [segregation] would have to be broken.”

On January 20, 1961, Meredith’s dream of attending the University got its needed encouragement and the push that would propel it into motion. It was the day of John F. Kennedy’s historical inauguration speech, with its now immortal words. Something in the new president’s words inspired James Meredith to initiate what would become a lengthy struggle to achieve his dream of attending the University of Mississippi. That very night he composed his letter of interest to the university. The following day he sent out his request for an application.

Being 1961, the country was still in the throes of segregation, and at the time, Mississippi was dubiously known for being the most segregated and violent anti-integration state in the Union. Naturally because of this fact and due to the rigid enforcement of Jim Crow Laws, the University of Mississippi denied, Meredith’s application, twice.  Meredith refused to give up his dream and began to petition assistance from several sources.

He first appealed to Thurgood Marshall then working with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund for assistance.  In a passionate letter, he stated that the struggle he was prepared to embark on was in ” the interest of and for the benefit of: (1) [his] country, (2) [his] race, (3) [his] family, and (4) [himself].” He had no delusion about the difficulty involved, as seen in the following quotation from the same letter,” I am familiar with the probable difficulties involved in such a move as I am undertaking and I am fully prepared to pursue it all the way to a degree from the University of Mississippi.”(Meredith)

Meredith also wrote an appeal to the US Justice Department beseeching them to intervene in his struggle with Ole Miss, and prevent the show of antagonism by the Mississippi government. In it, he wrote, “the power and influence of the federal government should be used where necessary to insure compliance with the laws as interpreted by proper authority.” Expressing his urge for the Justice department to uphold the Supreme Court ruling and let him register for school.

One of his fiercest supported in the process was famed civil rights leader Medgar Evers, who organized several protests and boycotts to further, Meredith’s cause. Medgar was Meredith’s primary supporter throughout his struggle with the University of Mississippi.

James Meredith’s urgent appeal to the Justice Department did not result in an immediate direct response from attorney general Robert Kennedy, though Kennedy actively fought on his behalf against the governor of Mississippi. Thurgood Marshall on the other hand was moved to immediate action by the letter he received. Acting on behalf of the Legal Defense and Educational Fund, he sent Constance Motley, a well-known civil-rights attorney from New York, who earned her stripes working on Brown vs. The Board of Education case, to fight for Meredith. As a result, of her involvement, on May 31, 1961, James Meredith was able to file a complaint of racial discrimination with the US District Court.

At first, the US District Court rejected Meredith’s case holding to the fact that separate but equal was an established law from the infamous case of Plessey vs. Fergusson. They appealed decision several times taking the case all the way to the Supreme Court. However, the former case results were reversed only after the fifth appeal. On September 10, 1962, the court found in a two to one vote that by denying Meredith admission to University the state of Mississippi was acting in conflict with the decision of Brown vs. The Board of Education.  The government mandated that the University of Mississippi admit James Meredith. The easy part of his battle was complete.

In a landmark decision against Jim Crow laws and segregation, Meredith was allowed to register at the University of Mississippi, but he still had one major  obstacle; the Governor of Mississippi, Ross Robert Barnett.

A vigilant segregationist Governor Barnett fought tooth and nail to deny Meredith admission. Son of a Confederate veteran, Barnett himself was an alumnus of Ole Miss, and he took it upon himself to insure that, his alma mater remained a white only institution. One of his infamous motions was to pass a law declaring that “any person who was convicted of a state crime [was prohibited] from admission to a state school.” This law was created and ratified by Governor Barnett after discovering that Meredith had been arrested for trying to vote, and was convicted by the state of Mississippi for false voter registration.

On September 20, 1967, the governor himself stood at the Woolfork Building, physically blocking, Meredith’s entry into the school to register. After fierce negotiations between Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Governor Burnett, they reached a tentative agreement. In the end, James Meredith was escorted by car driven by government officials, to register for class. The unruly mob assaulted his escort car with bottles and racks and riddled it with bullet holes.

On Oct 1, 1962, James Meredith attended his first class, Colonial American History, at the University of Mississippi Oxford campus. Anticipating a caustic reaction from the white Mississippians, President John F. Kennedy, sent US Marshals and federal troops to ensure that James Meredith had the most peaceful transition into the university that was possible at the turbulent time. Unfortunately, it was not to be, and violent riots erupted as Meredith was starting his first class. In the chaos that ensued, many shots were fired, many bottles and punches thrown. In the aftermath, two people were killed, 48 soldiers, and 28 US Marshals were wounded.

One of the dead was Paul Guihard, a French journalist who‘s death was said to add a stronger international aspect to the American civil rights movement. The happenings of this day and the aftershocks were chronicled in the song by Oxford Town by Bob Dylan.

In addition the anger and racism of the general populous of Mississippi, the riots were also incited in part by Governor Barnett’s infamous “I love Mississippi” speech at a football game the night before. As a result of this and his many schemes to interfere with Meredith’s registration he was fined $10,000 and charged with contempt, but the charges were dropped.

After his enrollment, James endured numerous lynching and death threats, psychological abuse, and disassociation from his classmates. According to Nadine Cohodas in her book The Band Played Dixie  the better part of Ole Miss students were adapted passively to Meredith‘s presence on campus. In her book, she also notes that when Meredith entered the dining hall, the majority of the students would turn away from him. The students living in the dorm room above Meredith bounced basketballs on the floor and stomped the floor throughout the night.  Even in the face of these indignities, he graduated two semesters later on August 18, 1963 with Bachelors degree in political science.

After graduation, Meredith and his family moved to Nigeria where he enrolled in Ibadan University until his graduation in 1965 when he earned a Masters in Government and Economics. Following this, Meredith and his family moved to New York, where he earned a law degree from Columbia University.

Always an independent entity, and never associating himself with the civil rights movement, on June 6, 1966 James Meredith organized, a solitary march called the March Against Fear. The march was to begin in Memphis, Tennessee to end 220 miles away in Jackson, Mississippi. Meredith’s aim was to shed light on the discrepancies between black and white voting rights in the South and to show black people that they could overcome the fear of violent aggression.

Early on in his march, a sniper, white supremacist Aubrey James Norvell, shot him repeatedly with buckshot. The moment was captured in a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph by  Jack R. Thornell of the Associated Press as well as in the song “Shot on James Meredith” by famed blues artist J. B. Lenoir. The march proved to be a massive success. With attendees such as by Martin Luther King and Stokley Carmichael, and over 15,000 other people, including Meredith himself who was released from the hospital in time to participate in the final day of the march.

As the 60’s progressed Meredith abandoned his work with civil rights for work as a stockbroker, taking time to publish memoirs about his experiences at Ole Miss. An active Republican most of his life, in his later years he confused his former civil rights supporters by becoming a domestic advisor to Senator Jesse Helms.  Helms was known for his unwavering anti-integration stance.

In addition, Meredith publicly opposed economic sanctions against South Africa during apartheid and he fought against making Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday a nationally recognized holiday.

During the celebration of the 40th anniversary of his part in the integration of the University of Mississippi, in 2002, James Meredith was quoted as saying, “It was an embarrassment for me to be there, and for somebody to celebrate it, oh my God.”

Though his latter life and many of later his statements seem to separate him from the civil rights movement and in many ways set him at odds with the movement’s belief structure, James Meredith is an important part of the American civil rights story. His actions and publicized struggle will forever hold as one of the most important and critical moments in the American fight for civil rights.

Works Cited

BBC News “On this day in History Oct, 1 1962: Mississippi race riots over first black student”  Web. 11 November, 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/1/newsid_2538000/2538169.stm

Byrd, Shelia Hardwell “Meredith ready to move on” Online Athens.Com. 20 September 2002. Web. 11 November, 2009 http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/092102/new_20020921041.shtml

Cohodas, Nadine The Band Played Dixie Print Free Press. May 5, 1997 “Integrating Ole Miss: Who was James Meredith?” June 2002. Web. 11 November 2009 http://www.jfklibrary.org/meredith/jm.html  Web