Integration of Ole Miss
A strong and independent minded man named James H. Meredith applied for acceptance into the University of Mississippi. Meredith "anticipated on encountering some type of difficulty" with his attempt to enter the University of Mississippi, also known as the Ole Miss, but 'difficulty' would not describe his journey. The day after John F. Kennedy was inaugurated in early January of 1961, Meredith requested for application into the Ole Miss. On January 26, the registrar of Ole Miss, Robert B. Ellis, sent him an application along with a letter indicating that the university was "very pleased to know of [Meredith's] interest in becoming a member of our student body" (JFK Library). Meredith applied on January 31, enclosing a letter indicting he was an "American-Mississippi-Negro citizen." On February 4 the registrar sent Meredith a telegram stating that the Ole Miss "found [it] necessary to discontinue consideration of all applications for registration . . . received after January 25, 1961" (JFK Library). Hearing of his status to the Ole Miss, Meredith seemed to have felt angry and annoyed. His application was neither accepted nor rejected, but rather delayed upon hearing that he was a Negro. Meredith immediately wrote to Thurgood Marshall then to the U.S. Justice Department describing his situation. Meredith had been consciously aware since he was fifteen that he was a Negro and "until I was fifteen I did not know that my group was supposed to be the inferior one. Since then I have felt a personal responsibility to change the status of my group" (JFK Library). Meredith applied to the Ole Miss not just to get an education, but he did it for the people of his race. Since realizing that he was supposed to be inf...
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...a brief one that didn?t help this report at all, other than to confirm a good review of the book.
Works Cited
Amacker , Kristy , and Ellen Harris . John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, Integrating Ole Miss . June 2002. JFK Education Department. 10 Apr. 2004 .
"Barnett Defies Federal Court on Mississippi U. Integration." New York Times 13 Sept.
1962: 2.
Diamonstein, Barbaralee. ?Historic Return to College.? Saturday Review 28 May 1966: 31-32.
Integration and the University of Mississippi. Cartoon. New York Times [New York] 30 Sept. 1962: 1.
"News Summary and Index." New York Times 2 Oct. 1962: 1.
Smith, Hedrick. "Barnett Charges Marshalls: Says 'Trigger- Happy' U.S. Officers are Responsible for Campus Bloodshed." New York Times 1 Oct 1962: 2.
In conclusion, the Kent State shooting was a tragedy that has never really had anyone held responsible. Thirty-eight years later, “Official investigations as to exactly what happened at Kent State were inconclusive.” The days preceding the shootings, the students burned down the ROTC building, protested on the commons, and threw rubbish at police officers. The violent actions of the students put the law enforcement officials and National Guardsmen around them on edge. On the other side, the Guardsmen arrived in full combat gear to put down unarmed college students. There was no reason for the soldiers to fire at the students that were hundreds of feet away from them. Whether one of the soldiers fired in a moment of panic or if they were order to commence shooting may never be known.
Marable, Manning. Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007.
In 1970 the nation was in its highest state of controversy. The generation gap that had begun to form in the sixties was now more of a ravine. The youth of America was finally standing up and raising their voices in protest against all the problems that plagued the country they would have control of in years to come. There were many events that helped in feeding the flame in the hearts of Americans. One such event was the Kent State University incident. It is an event that touched the nation and made such a profound mark, and yet it only lasted for thirteen seconds. In the thirteen seconds the Ohio National Guard, along with the rest of government by association, established themselves as the new enemy. All eyes were on them, scrutinizing their every move, pointing out every mistake they made. Interestingly enough, most don’t even really know exactly what went on in those thirteen seconds, but they knew that it left four students dead and nine injured at the hand of the National Guard, so that was enough to strike the hearts on millions. Still today, twenty-nine years later, we still don’t really know what went on. Who fired the first shot, and were they provoked? Was it necessary for the National Guard to be present on this typically calm college campus in the first place? And why did it have to end in such tragedy? There are so many questions, and so many misconceptions about this incident, and like any controversial issue, there are always two sides to the story.
In this paper I will inform you with a few of these events and topics such as the Civil war, slavery, as well as facts of the state. I hope my readers walk away with a new respect and outlook of Mississippi and learn how the past can affect the future, as well as the beauty.
In September 1957, nine African American high school students set off to be the first African American students to desegregate the all white Central High School. The six agirls and the three boys were selected by their brightness and capability of ignoring threats of the white students at Central High. This was all part of the Little Rock school board’s plan to desegregate the city schools gradually, by starting with a small group of kids at a single high school. However, the plan turned out to be a lot more complex when Governor Orval Faubus decided not to let the nine enter the school.
The early 1960s, a time that was on the brink of revolutionizing the United States, as Americans thought they knew it. This was a time of great inequality and segregation amongst White-Americans and African-Americans. The fight for equality and rights for Americans was at the height. One university, the University Mississippi also known as Ole Miss, strong rooted in the traditional heritage of the “Old South” the University was very strict they have never admitted an African American student until 1962, James Meredith. James Meredith’s admission to the University of Mississippi served as a catalyst not only for himself in life, but for the African American community and furthering prosperity
Schmidt, Michael. “Fatal Bombs in Iraq Seemed Aimed at Militia.” The New York Times. 09 Feb. 2011. Web. 26 Feb. 2011.
The classes EDFN 211 and EDFN 241 correspond with each other but also are diverse. In class EDFN 211, we have multiple discussions about race, diversity, and gender issues. In the beginning of the year we learned about the history of education and how to appreciate different cultures in a class room. We reviewed historical documents important to education and those who positively influenced schooling. Our class spoke about the Pima/Apache Indians, Benjamin Harris, Gerard Terborch, Theodore de Bry and Thomas Jefferson.
Briscoe, Daren, The Green Beret Murders Haven’t Given Up. Newsweek, August 30, 2004. Vol. 144, Issue 9, p6, 4/5p, 1c. Retrieved from EBSCO database on the World Wide Web: http://web3.epnet.com/
Jealous, Benjamin Todd. "Lessons from an HBCU’s Demise." The Conversation. N.p., 9 Sept. 2013. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.
Green, Makiah. “I’m a Scholar, Not a Criminal: The Plight of Black Students at USC.”
Throughout the American South, of many Negro’s childhood, the system of segregation determined the patterns of life. Blacks attended separate schools from whites, were barred from pools and parks where whites swam and played, from cafes and hotels where whites ate and slept. On sidewalks, they were expected to step aside for whites. It took a brave person to challenge this system, when those that did suffered a white storm of rancour. Affronting this hatred, with assistance from the Federal Government, were nine courageous school children, permitted into the 1957/8 school year at Little Rock Central High. The unofficial leader of this band of students was Ernest Green.
Roebuck, Julian B., and Komanduri S. Murty. Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Their Place in American Higher Education. Westport: Praeger, 1993. Print.
While many whites argued that the black race was inferior to that of the race of intellect, many civil rights activists and NAACP members claimed that their students had the same credentials to get into their colleges as the white students did. The desegregationist claimed if they were not judged by the color of skin that their students could easily graduate from prestigious southern universities such as the University of Mississippi and University of Georgia. This claim was proven when the University of Georgia’s first black students, Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, were admitted to the University of Georgia and would graduate from the University. This alone proved that the segregationist were wrong about evolutionary deformities within the black community. Some supporters of the Civil Rights movement felt like the white supremacy was much like that of “ Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin” much like whites did about the NAACP for trying to integrate public white universities . In a letter from a soldier stationed in Tokyo, Japan he plainly states “Congratulations! You guys have stood firmly to principle… Segregation is a real fuel for Commie Propaganda, and its continuance will certainly endanger the very existence of our country…. Incidentally I’m white and from Texas” (Pratt 35). Even though the segregationist ideas were very harmful on a
During this time, the idea of segregation was a very controversial topic among the c...