James Meredith and the Integration of Ole Miss

Abstract

JAMES MEREDITH WAS many things: husband, father, son, soldier, and, above all, by his own defini? tion, American-Mississippi-Negro citizen. He was also determined and deliberate so there was nothing happenstance about his decision to apply to the University of Mississippi, nothing serendipitous about the day he picked to set the process in motion: January 21, 1961, 24 hours after John Kennedy's inauguration, Meredith thought this was a fitting moment to take a bold step for his people. He knew that black votes had played an important part in Kennedy's narrow victory. What's more, Kennedy had promised during the campaign to do something about civil rights, so Meredith reasoned that the new administration owed something to blacks and would have to act if put under pressure by black leaders. He was willing to make sure that pressure would be applied. Meredith had chosen Ole Miss because it was a symbol of white prestige and power, a haven for the privileged and the finishing school for the sons of the elite. I always consid? ered myself one of those sons, Meredith explained, fierce? ly proud of his family's deep roots in the state. He had prepared for this day carefully and for a long time. His pride of place and sense of belonging to Mississippi had come from his father, the first member of the family to own a piece of land, this in the hill country of the 70 miles northeast of Jackson. Meredith had been born on that prop? erty in an old house at the top of a long, winding driveway that was shielded from neighboring farms, all white owned, by dense woods. Meredith, as the senior Meredith was known, ran the household with a firm hand. His son referred to it as a sovereign state with its own rules, even in dealing with white Mississippi. Cap instilled in his chil? dren a great sense of personal pride. No Meredith, including young J.H. ? the name James would come later in life ? ever went inside a white person's house because he or she would have had to enter through the back door. And Cap Meredith had taught his children that this was dishon? orable. Moreover, no Meredith would work in a white woman's kitchen or take care of her children.