A pivotal figure for the American civil rights movement was gunned down on the second day of a solo 220-mile “March Against Fear” on June 6th, 1966.
Incredibly, James Meredith survived multiple gunshot wounds and was well enough to join the final day of the march just 20 days later, by which time it had grown to around 15,000 people.
Five years earlier, in 1961, Mr Meredith – an African-American who had served nine years in the United States Air Force – became an icon for the civil rights movement when he applied to enrol at the University of Mississippi. At that time much of the USA, especially its southern states, were racially segregated, with black citizens routinely denied the opportunities available to their white counterparts.
Mr Meredith knew it was his civil right to attend the University of Mississippi, which was a state-funded facility, and was inspired to apply after hearing President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address. However, the segregated university rejected his application – the first from an African American.
After a second application was also refused, he enlisted the help of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) which brought a law suit in a federal court on his behalf. It argued the rejections could only be on the grounds of his race, as he met all other criteria, with a highly successful record of military service and in other academic courses.
The court eventually granted him the right to enrol, but when he went to the university to do so, he was turned away by the university authorities and the governor of Mississippi, who vowed: “No school will be integrated in Mississippi while I am your governor”. A false conviction was even trumped up against him so he could be barred under a newly-made rule denying admission to convicted felons, but the truth soon came out.
Ultimately President Kennedy intervened, ordering the authorities in Mississippi to abide by the rule of law and enrol Mr Meredith, but a mob of white protestors gathered at the university determined to stop him. When the Mississippi National Guard and federal troops were ordered onto the university campus to ensure Mr Meredith was enrolled, rioting broke out, with two men killed by gunshot wounds and many more injured before order was finally restored.
The following day (October 1st, 1962) Mr Meredith became the first African-American to enrol at the University of Mississippi, something still regarded as a pivotal moment in the history of civil rights in America. Event then he endured persistent harassment and isolation before graduating with a degree in political science, paving the way for other black students to follow in his footsteps.
Continuing his education, Mr Meredith also campaigned for civil rights and in 1966 planned a solo 220-mile “March Against Fear” from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi. His aim was to highlight continuing racial oppression in the Mississippi Delta, encourage African Americans to register to vote (a new right granted them the previous year) and to overcome the fear of violence against them.
Police officers, reporters and even FBI agents accompanied Mr Meredith for his protection, but on only the second day, June 6th, he was ambushed by a white gunman who shot him three times in the back and legs. The shooter, 41-year-old Aubrey James Norvell, later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison. Mr Meredith’s wounds proved to be superficial and while he recovered in hospital, civil rights leader Martin Luther King took up his walk, now renamed the Meredith March, and was soon joined by thousands of others from across the USA.
By the time it reached its conclusion in Jackson, it had become the largest civil rights march in state history, with around 15,000 people taking part. Among them was Mr Meredith himself, who had recovered enough to be released from hospital. During the march more than 4,000 black Mississippians registered to vote, with many more doing so in subsequent months.
In the years that followed, Mr Meredith led a full and active life and became celebrated as a civil rights pioneer, although he never considered himself part of an organised movement, only an individual standing up for his rights. In 2002 a statue was erected in his honour at the University of Mississippi to mark the 40 anniversary of his enrolment. Now 84, he continues to live in Jackson Mississippi.