Integrating Ole Miss: A Transformative, Deadly Riot

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Fifty years ago — Oct. 1, 1962 — the first black student was admitted to the University of Mississippi, a bastion of the Old South.

The town of Oxford erupted. It took some 30,000 U.S. troops, federal marshals and national guardsmen to get James Meredith to class after a violent campus uprising. Two people were killed and more than 300 injured. Some historians say the integration of Ole Miss was the last battle of the Civil War.

It was a high-stakes showdown between President Kennedy and Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett.

"I'm a Mississippi segregationist and I am proud of it," the governor declared.

Publicly, Barnett promised to block Meredith from the campus in Oxford, despite a federal court order. Privately, he was on the phone trying to strike a compromise with Kennedy.

While Barnett wanted to save face by defending Mississippi's segregationist laws, the president told him he had a responsibility to uphold federal law.

"What I'd like to do is for this to work out in an amicable way," Kennedy said to Barnett in a phone call. "We don't want a lot of people down there getting hurt."

'Totally Chaotic'

By Saturday, Sept. 29, 1962, Kennedy was deploying federal marshals to Oxford, and Barnett was making a fiery speech at an Ole Miss football game.

"I love Mississippi! I love her people, our customs," he said. "I love and I respect our heritage."

History professor Chuck Ross, director of the African-American Studies Program at Ole Miss, says the speech "was almost like firing on Fort Sumter in 1861."

"A call to arms ... 'We're getting ready to be invaded, we really want you as a Mississippian, a white Mississippian, to respond,' " Ross says.

On Sunday night, hundreds of white students and protesters from around the region flocked to campus and moved toward the Lyceum, the stately columned building where Meredith would register.

"Marshalls surround the Lyceum. They begin to use tear gas. People begin to throw rocks and bottles," Ross says. "Things just go totally chaotic when it becomes dark, and that's when people begin to shoot."

Kennedy activated the Mississippi National Guard and called in Army troops from Memphis, Tenn. By dawn Oct. 1, the riot was quelled and marshals escorted Meredith to his first class, American history.

A Climate Of Change

The university became a target of civil rights activists soon after the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling that desegregated public schools.

Slain NAACP leader Medgar Evers applied to law school there and was rejected.

"Medgar came before James Meredith. He paved the way for James Meredith to come along and eventually be successful," says Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of Evers, who was gunned down in 1964.

She says that when Medgar Evers contacted the NAACP to get help with his Ole Miss application, it asked him to be the organization's leader in Mississippi.

The Ole Miss riots occurred at a time when staunch segregationists — and oftentimes violent racists — dominated the political structure in Mississippi. 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.

http://www.npr.org/2...mpaign=20121001

Edited October 1, 2012 by Commie Appeaser

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Like most racists/segregationists, Governor Ross Barnett is a Democrat. You must be so proud Steven.

Now they want to keep hispanics in slavery by allowing them to be exploited by business for a profit.

A sterling legacy of dispicable racism.

Martin Luther King was Republican. Abraham Lincoln was Republican. George Wallace, Democrat. The KKK supported Democrats. Nathan Bedford Forrest, Democrat.

[^_^ 5,021]

Like most racists/segregationists, Governor Ross Barnett is a Democrat. You must be so proud Steven.

Now they want to keep hispanics in slavery by allowing them to be exploited by business for a profit.

A sterling legacy of dispicable racism.

Martin Luther King was Republican. Abraham Lincoln was Republican. George Wallace, Democrat. The KKK supported Democrats. Nathan Bedford Forrest, Democrat.

Yeah, cling to those past glories... what is the record of the contemporary GOP on race issues? Abysmal. But yes, the record of the past is definitely something to be proud of. Too bad it's all in the past.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Like most racists/segregationists, Governor Ross Barnett is a Democrat. You must be so proud Steven.

Now they want to keep hispanics in slavery by allowing them to be exploited by business for a profit.

A sterling legacy of dispicable racism.

Martin Luther King was Republican. Abraham Lincoln was Republican. George Wallace, Democrat. The KKK supported Democrats. Nathan Bedford Forrest, Democrat.

Rumor has it that JFK was a Democrat. But I guess he wasn't really relevant to the OP article...

[Danno 1,228]

Rumor has it that JFK was a Democrat. But I guess he wasn't really relevant to the OP article...

Actually wasn't he a little late to the game.... seems I recall his siggy was not the first civil rights act.

[Danno 1,228]

What I find amusing is the same guy who can only focus on the South lives himself is a nice secure area nearly void of Black folks.

Liberalism at it's finest.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

nm.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Obama 2012

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Yeah, cling to those past glories... what is the record of the contemporary GOP on race issues? Abysmal. But yes, the record of the past is definitely something to be proud of. Too bad it's all in the past.

I am Libertarian. I have no need to apologize for past present or future racism of Dems or Republicans. Why do people continually try to get me to defend the Republicans? I mean is it necessary to repeat something THAT many times to get the point across there, Forrest Gump?

The Democrat legacy of racism continues to this day with their defense and support of the exploitation and smuggling of humans illegally for profit.

Edited October 1, 2012 by Gary and Alla

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Rumor has it that JFK was a Democrat. But I guess he wasn't really relevant to the OP article...

He was assasinated by a Muslim. Just sayin'

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

He was assasinated by a Muslim. Just sayin'

Lee Harvey Oswald was a muslim? That's a new twist on the JFK conspiracy theories.

[Dan J 277]

Like most racists/segregationists, Governor Ross Barnett is a Democrat. You must be so proud Steven.

Now they want to keep hispanics in slavery by allowing them to be exploited by business for a profit.

A sterling legacy of dispicable racism.

Martin Luther King was Republican. Abraham Lincoln was Republican. George Wallace, Democrat. The KKK supported Democrats. Nathan Bedford Forrest, Democrat.

If you look at what the parties stand for today, its likely the labels would be switched. Republicans used to be progressive too, what happened to that?

[Danno 1,228]

If you look at what the parties stand for today, its likely the labels would be switched. Republicans used to be progressive too, what happened to that?

"Progressive"

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

Lee Harvey Oswald was a muslim? That's a new twist on the JFK conspiracy theories.

Sorry, the Muslim killed RFK. What was I thinkin'? Never mind, Muslims are good.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

Actually Sirhan Sirhan was a Christian Arab

Perhaps a more interesting correlation is that LHO was married to a RUB woman? Maybe she didn't sleep naked next to him......

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

If you look at what the parties stand for today, its likely the labels would be switched. Republicans used to be progressive too, what happened to that?

Another one trying to get me to defend Republicans.

If you look at Democrats TODAY they support human trafficking and exploitation for profit to replace the blacks that they enslaved and later oppressed, until they were forced, against their filibuster and with threat of armed insurection of civil rights and voting rights to finally grant full status to. They revised the immigration policies in 1965 to provide a ready source of cheap labor to replace blacks and TODAY defend and promote that practice.

The racist policies of the Democrats have not change one single bit. They have simply switched races. The blacks have been neatly tucked away where the Democrats want them through various "social programs" modeled after the programs which so well contained native Americans.

Actually Sirhan Sirhan was a Christian Arab

Perhaps a more interesting correlation is that LHO was married to a RUB woman? Maybe she didn't sleep naked next to him......

Not likely.

So you agree with me Muslims are good but think Arabs are bad?