Ole Miss
September Winzer
CHIS USA, Africa, and the World II
4/18/2013
Research Paper
The Integration of Ole Miss
James Meredith’s successful campaign to gain admission to the University of Mississippi, ‘Ole Miss’, and desegregate education in the state most resistant to integration of educational institutions has become a crucial epitome in the civil rights movement. The integration of Ole Miss altered Mississippi’s politics and contributed to a cultural shift in the region, as well as rejuvenated local civil rights activists and those in neighboring states. The historic confrontation among James Meredith and the University of Mississippi gives perspective on the category of African-Americans in the U.S. civilization during the 20th century; breaking down the multi-layered notions of the combat of Ole Miss gives insight on the social and political forces that identified and cooperated with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
On September 30, 1962, riots evolved on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford where residents, perspective students, and committed segregationists joined to protest the enrollment and placement of James Meredith, African-American Air Force veteran attempting to integrate the all-white school. Despite the presence of more than 120 federal marshals who were on site to protect Meredith from danger, “the crowd turned violent after nightfall, and authorities struggled to maintain order”. Once the disappeared the next morning, two citizens were dead and an abundant amount were reportedly injured. For Meredith, this was a step into the door for a process that began no more than two years earlier when he challenged the school, suspecting that he was denied enrollment on the background of ethnicity. However, a lower court partnered with the University of Mississippi, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit established a decision in June 1962 which ordered the school to accept Meredith in the fall of 1962, ensuring
CHIS USA, Africa, and the World II
4/18/2013
Research Paper
The Integration of Ole Miss
James Meredith’s successful campaign to gain admission to the University of Mississippi, ‘Ole Miss’, and desegregate education in the state most resistant to integration of educational institutions has become a crucial epitome in the civil rights movement. The integration of Ole Miss altered Mississippi’s politics and contributed to a cultural shift in the region, as well as rejuvenated local civil rights activists and those in neighboring states. The historic confrontation among James Meredith and the University of Mississippi gives perspective on the category of African-Americans in the U.S. civilization during the 20th century; breaking down the multi-layered notions of the combat of Ole Miss gives insight on the social and political forces that identified and cooperated with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
On September 30, 1962, riots evolved on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford where residents, perspective students, and committed segregationists joined to protest the enrollment and placement of James Meredith, African-American Air Force veteran attempting to integrate the all-white school. Despite the presence of more than 120 federal marshals who were on site to protect Meredith from danger, “the crowd turned violent after nightfall, and authorities struggled to maintain order”. Once the disappeared the next morning, two citizens were dead and an abundant amount were reportedly injured. For Meredith, this was a step into the door for a process that began no more than two years earlier when he challenged the school, suspecting that he was denied enrollment on the background of ethnicity. However, a lower court partnered with the University of Mississippi, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit established a decision in June 1962 which ordered the school to accept Meredith in the fall of 1962, ensuring