Video: 'John F. Kennedy's Address on the Situation at the University of Mississippi. September 30, 1962'
(Sunday, September 30, 1962, 10:00 p.m. EDT; during the Ole Miss riot of 1962, part of the Civil rights movement) — As rioting intensified tonight in anticipation of the enrollment of James Meredith as the first African-American student at the University of Mississippi, U.S. President John F. Kennedy appealed to the students and the people of Mississippi tonight to comply peacefully with federal law and bring the desegregation crisis to an end.
“The eyes of the nation and all the world are upon you and upon all of us,” he said, “and the honor of your university and state are in the balance.”
Kennedy said that while everyone is free to disagree with the law, no man, no matter how highly placed, is entitled to disobey it for “defiance of the law is the surest road to tyranny.”
A government, he said, can permit “no mob, however unruly or boisterous, to defy the law.”
Federal and U.S. state law enforcement were dispatched to accompany Meredith during his registration to maintain civil order, but a riot erupted on campus. Partly incited by General Edwin Walker, the mob assaulted reporters and federal officers, burned and looted property, and hijacked vehicles.
Two people were killed by unknown persons. Paul Guihard, a British reporter on assignment for the Agence France-Presse, was shot in the back, and a local jukebox repairman, George Gunter, was shot in the head.
4,000 troops of the 108th Armored Cavalry Regiment of the Mississippi National Guard were “federalized” under the command of Brigadier General Charles Billingslea of the U.S. Army to restore order, taking the side of the United States against the State of Mississippi.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education, Meredith tried to integrate Ole Miss by applying in 1961. When he informed the university that he was African American, his admission was delayed and obstructed, first by school officials and then by Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett. In a bid to block his enrollment, Barnett even had Meredith temporarily jailed.
Multiple attempts by Meredith, accompanied by federal officials, to enroll were physically blocked. Hoping to avoid violence and ensure Meredith’s enrollment, President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy had a series of unproductive telephone conversations with Barnett.
The riot ended 15 hours later after more than 13,000 soldiers arrived in the early morning. Over 30,000 troops were deployed, alerted, and committed during the conflict. the largest for a single disturbance in American history.
The riot was followed by the desegregation of Ole Miss. A statue of James Meredith now commemorates the event on campus, and the site of the riot is designated as a National Historic Landmark.
