James Meredith is a civil-rights icon who hates the term “civil rights.”
It’s as if civil rights were somehow set apart from – well, rights.
“When it comes to my rights as an American citizen, and yours, I am a triumphalist and an absolutist. Anything less is an insult,” said the black man who 50 years ago inflamed the anger of white Mississippi by quietly demanding admission to the state’s segregated flagship university.
Now 79 and living in Jackson, Meredith sees himself as a messenger of God – a warrior who crippled the beast of white supremacy by integrating the University of Mississippi.
These days, he frequently wears an Ole Miss baseball hat in public. When the university’s football team recently played the University of Texas in Oxford, Meredith was a guest in the chancellor’s stadium skybox, and the crowd applauded when that was announced over the loudspeakers.
Yet he says he doesn’t plan to participate in the university’s commemoration of his history-making enrollment, which prompted a state-federal standoff, sparked deadly mob violence and ultimately ended the university’s official policy of racial segregation.
The university says Meredith has been invited to take part in events to mark the anniversary, including a walk that student leaders will take Monday to retrace his first day on campus.
Meredith says he doesn’t see the point.
“I ain’t never heard of the French celebrating Waterloo,” he told The Associated Press. “I ain’t never heard of the Germans celebrating the invasion of Normandy, or … the bombing and destruction of Berlin. I ain’t never heard of the Spanish celebrating the destruction of the Armada.”
Asked to clarify, Meredith said: “Did you find anything 50 years ago that I should be celebrating?”
Ole Miss administrators today don’t shy away from the history of a half century ago. For the past year, Ole Miss has sponsored lectures and other events to commemorate Meredith’s Oct. 1, 1962, enrollment and the ensuing changes that have made the university more diverse.
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article courtesy of TheHuffingtonPost.com
