The dead cannot be interviewed. James Meredith lives among us. Talking with the 86 year-old Northsider about his life, what he experienced, and where he thinks society is headed is warranted.
Meredith “holds court” at the Courthouse Athletic Club, most mornings from seven or eight until approximately 10, after which he does so at Kroger on I-55 North. Anyone interested should pay their respects, either place. Meredith is a living legend, immortalized in a statue in bronze behind the Lyceum at Ole Miss.
The struggle to integrate Ole Miss, in which Meredith succeeded on Monday October 1, 1962, after an overnight insurrection on campus — described as the closest thing to a civil war since the Civil War — in which two people were killed, ensures his place in history.
Meredith believes that Mississippi’s mission is to lead the Christian world — to institute God’s plan through Christian teaching. He thinks that Mississippi is the most Christian place on earth. Meredith says that race issues subsume issues of rich and poor. “No one plays the race card better than Donald Trump. I thought that it was David Duke, but Donald Trump outplays David Duke.” Meredith has been associated with David Duke and Senator Jesse Helms (for whom Meredith worked) although it might surprise people that Meredith worked with Far Right figures.
The one-drop rule prevented Caucasians from appreciating hierarchies of freedmen and pigmentation within African-American communities.
As did Rosa Parks, James Meredith had a Caucasian great-grandparent and Native American blood. James Meredith’s paternal grandmother was daughter of Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Josiah Abigail Patterson Campbell, who served from 1876 through 1894 — Chief Justice during his final six years. Campbell was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1851 and 1859. He became speaker of the House in 1860. He signed the Confederate Constitution on March 11, 1861. He was president pro tempore of the Confederacy, in 1863.
Campbell raised Meredith’s father. Such a background leads one to anticipate freedom as one’s birthright.
Campbell graduated from Davidson College, before being admitted to the Bar at age 17. He was elected to the state Legislature at age twenty-one. He helped frame the Mississippi Codes of 1871 and 1880.
Meredith was raised in Attala County among Native Americans, who lived east of the Yockanookany River, a 78 1/2 mile-long Pearl River tributary, running through Choctaw, Attala and Leake Counties. He had no substantial interactions with African-Americans until enrolling in Jackson State College, after serving in the United States Air Force between 1951 and 1960.
Given the manifold machinations designed to deter Meredith from entering Ole Miss, he was denied the opportunity to transfer college credits from Jackson State. They were ultimately accepted — after he enrolled at Ole Miss — to speed his departure, Meredith maintains. He graduated on August 18, 1963, majoring in Political Science and minoring in French and History.
In 1961, the inimitable Mississippi Bureau Chief for The Times-Picayune, Bill Minor, interviewed James Meredith on the Jackson State campus. The resulting article concluded that James Meredith was crazy. Meredith later learned that Minor thought Meredith to be crazy because Meredith did not think that he would be killed for seeking admission to Ole Miss.
(When Clennon King became the first African-American to seek enrollment at Ole Miss, during Summer 1958, he was jailed after attempting to register, before being declared insane and institutionalized in the Mississippi State Asylum at Whitfield, briefly).
I have wondered whether James Meredith feared for his life on Sunday evening September 30, 1962, when opposing forces battled, on campus, while Meredith remained in a room nearby, overnight. He did not believe that he could die but he suggests, in retrospect, that he might have been overconfident. It took the hubris of a character from Greek mythology to fight generations of social practice and change history.
James Meredith enjoys sharing his stories. Meredith may no more let facts intrude than other great raconteurs. What any living legend believes is as germane as what is grounded.
Northsiders need to acknowledge our debt of gratitude to a hero of epic proportions living among us when opportunity allows.
Jay Wiener is a Northsider.
