Video: 'James Meredith Graduates from the University of Mississippi (August 18, 1963)'
(Sunday, August 18, 1963; during the civil rights movement) — James Meredith, 30, today became the first African-American to graduate from the University of Mississippi in its 115 years of existence.
He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree, having majored in political science and minored in French.
The cost of Meredith’s protection by federal marshals was more than $5,000,000.
“The commencement ceremony went off without incident,” reported The New York Times, in contrast to his admission less than a year earlier.
Meredith, a strong-minded man who considered himself fighting in a “war” for his rights as a citizen, first applied to Ole Miss in January 1961. After an 18-month legal battle, a court ordered the university to admit him, but a strong segregationist faction led by the Mississippi governor, Ross Barnett, refused to let him register in September 1962.
While the governor knew that he would eventually have to admit Meredith, he did not want to appear weak to his fellow segregationists. At one point, he asked Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to instruct United States marshals to point guns at him, to give the impression that he was forced to relent.
Video: 'The Legacy of James Meredith'
On Sept. 30, 1962, hundreds of federal marshals secured the campus and sneaked Meredith into a dormitory. That evening, Ole Miss students and area segregationists began attacking the marshals and rioting. President John F. Kennedy ordered federal troops to quell the rioting, which left two dead.
On the morning of Oct. 1, with thousands of armed troops surrounding the campus, Meredith was at last able to register for classes. He spent a year at the school, accompanied by United States marshals, and faced near-daily harassment and isolation from his fellow students.
Having accumulated credits at another school, Meredith needed only a year to graduate, but the degree didn’t matter to him. “It was never about education — never about education,” Meredith explained in a recent interview with the National Visionary Leadership Project. “It was about power. It was about citizenship. It was about enjoying everything any other man enjoys. It ain’t never been about education.”
In 1966, Meredith tried a one-man March Against Fear from Memphis to Jackson, Miss., but was shot in the leg by a would-be assassin. Civil rights leaders including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael completed the march in Meredith’s name.
Meredith received a law degree from Columbia and became active in politics, surprising many and angering some civil rights leaders by running for Congress as a Republican. Later, he served on the staff of conservative Senator Jesse Helms and supported the former Klansman David Duke’s bid for Louisiana governor.
