1

Disintegration
Ross Barnett, the Kennedys, and the Politics of Integration at Ole Miss

Andrew Begley History 799: Senior Thesis Advisor: Harvard Sitkoff University of New Hampshire May, 2006

2 Americans are free, in short, to disagree with the lawbut not to disobey it. For in a government of laws, and not of men, no manhowever prominent or powerfuland no mobhowever unruly or boisterousis entitled to defy a court of law. If this country should ever reach the point where any man or group of men, by force, or threat of force, could long defy the commands of our courts and Constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt, no judge would be sure of his writ, and no citizen would be safe from his neighbors1. President Kennedys Address to the Nation, 8p.m. September 30th, 1962.

At the very moment President Kennedy was speaking the eloquent words quoted above, U.S. marshals were firing tear gas on hundreds of rioters violently protesting the integration of the University of Mississippi. Although these rioters would not long defy the commands of the courts and Constitution, their violent reaction to court ordered integration led to two deaths and hundreds of casualties in Oxford, Mississippi, and forever altered how federal and state governments dealt with integration issues.

Barrett, Russell H. Integration at Ole Miss. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965, p. 150.

3 Legal and Political Precedents The struggle over school desegregation in the United States began long before James Howard Meredith decided to challenge Mississippis racial customs by applying to the University of Mississippi in 1961. However, the political and legal precedents of the previous ten years both made this decision possible and helped to strengthen Merediths resolve to apply to Ole Miss. The most important case in the battle for school desegregation, and perhaps the judiciarys most influential civil rights decision in its history, was the Supreme Courts 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. Although the Brown decisions lasting effectiveness has been debated to this day, it is undeniable that the case thrust school desegregation into the national spotlight and gave James Meredith and students of all ages the constitutional backing to seek an equal education in American public schools. The Brown case evolved out of five separate cases challenging school segregation in Clarendon County, South Carolina (Briggs v. Elliot), Prince Edward County, Virginia (Davis v. County School Board), Wilmington, Delaware (Gebhart v. Belton and Bulah v. Gebhart), Washington, D.C. (Bolling v. Sharpe), and Topeka, Kansas (Brown v. Board of Education)2. Driven by a combination of grassroots organization by local chapters of the NAACP and other community groups, and by the perseverance of black parents under often extremely hostile circumstances, each of these cases was argued in the lower courts and each would eventually be challenged to the Supreme Court. As the five cases all focused on the same issue, the constitutionality of segregation in public schools, the court decided the consolidate them and try all five
2

Ogletree, Charles J. All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half Century of Brown v. Board of Education. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2004, p. 4-5.

4 cases at the same time under the title of Brown v. Board of Education (although Bolling v. Sharpe would merit some separate consideration as the wording of the Constitution deals differently with Washington, D.C., as it is not a state). When arguments commenced on the case in December 1952, the main issue facing the court was the 1896 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. In its Plessy decision, which would become the basis for segregation in schools and a host of other public areas, the court ruled that maintaining separate rail cars for black and white passengers in New Orleans did not violate the 14th Amendment, with Justice Charles E. Fenner postulating that there was a, natural, legal and customary difference between the white and black races3, which made their separation necessary. Using the phraseology which would come to define the fight over segregation in public schools, Fenner pointed out that the lower courts had repeatedly upheld that, Statutes and regulations enforcing the separation of the races in public conveyances or in public schools, so long at least as the facilities or accommodations provided are substantially equal, do not abridge any privilege or immunity of citizens or otherwise contravene the XIV Amendment4. In the years between Plessy and Brown, this separate but equal doctrine had been used repeatedly by segregationists to demonstrate the validity of their position. It was also invoked by the federal district courts on occasion to force school districts to provide better facilities for black students to bring black schools up to the level of their white counterparts. However, Brown posed an entirely different question. Even if white and black facilities had had all of the same resources and equally qualified teachers, could

Olsen, Otto H. Ed. The Thin Disguise: Turning Point in Negro History- Plessy V. Ferguson: A Documentary Presentation (1864-1896). New York: Humanities Press, 1967, p. 73. 4 Olsen, p. 72.

5 separate facilities ever really be equal? Lead counsel Thurgood Marshall and the other attorneys on the case argued that separate did in fact mean unequal. In this capacity, the plaintiffs introduced testimony by psychologists and other experts who testified that racial separation had a harmful psychological effect on black children, and that only in an integrated school setting would African-American children be able to receive a truly equal education. When Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the courts ruling on May 14th, 1954, nearly a year and a half after the cases were brought before the Supreme Court, its unanimous opinion found that segregation in public schools was in fact a violation of the 14th Amendments equal protection clause, and therefore unconstitutional. In his opinion, Warren wrote, In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms.to separate [black children] from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone5. This opinion, which became known as Brown I, invalidated the separate but equal doctrine of Plessy and went well beyond simply ordering the school districts named in the lawsuits to allow the plaintiffs to attend schoolit held that all of the nations segregated schools must be integrated. However, this decision did not include any provisions on how each school district must go about implementing desegregation. In its second ruling

Kluger, Richard. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black Americas Struggle for Equality. New York: Alfred A. Knopf , 2004, p. 707-708.

6 on Brown, known as Brown II, the court attempted to address this problem. On May 31st, 1955, the Supreme Court famously, or perhaps infamously, declared that desegregation must occur throughout the country with all deliberate speed. Acknowledging that local situations varied from town to town and state to state, the Supreme Court left it up to the district courts to rule on the specifics of each school districts integration process. Although the Court felt that this was the only way to deal with the diversity of segregation issues in different communities, its decision on Brown II opened a door for opponents of desegregation to stall and circumvent the original decision. Professor Charles Ogletree, Jr. writes that the Supreme Court was pressured into weakening its original position by a variety of factors. Fearful that southern segregationists, as well as the executive and legislative branches of state and federal governments, would both resist and impede this courageous decision, the Court offered a palliative to those opposed to Browns directive6. Regardless of the Courts reasoning, the ambiguous nature of its all deliberate speed decision opened the door to widespread resistance to the original Brown decision. One of the most famous incidents of such resistance, which would serve in many ways as a precedent for James Merediths attempt to integrate the University of Mississippi, was the 1957 school integration crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas. Following the Supreme Courts Brown decision, the Little Rock school district actually put in motion a plan to begin voluntary compliance with the courts integration orders. However, when faced with public opposition, the originally progressive plan which called for integrating all of Little Rocks high schools and junior high schools by 1956 was replaced by a much lengthier and drawn out process7. Although the NAACP
6 7

Ogletree, p. 10. Freyer, Tony. The Little Rock Crisis: A Constitutional Interpretation. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984, p. 16-17.

7 filed suit on behalf of 33 black students who had attempted to enter Little Rocks new Horace Mann High School in January 1956 (in Aaron v. Cooper), both the District Court and later the U.S. Court of Appeals found that Little Rock was complying with the Supreme Courts ruling to proceed with all deliberate speed, and no further court action was necessary8. However, when a small group of black children attempted to enter the citys other high school, Central High, under the aegis of the more conservative integration plan in September 1957, they provoked a violent reaction from the people of Little Rock and drastic response by Governor Orval Faubus. On September 2nd, 1957, the day before nine black children were scheduled to enter Central High, Governor Faubus dispatched Arkansas National Guardsmen to the school to block the students from entering. When one of the black students, a young girl named Elizabeth Eckford, attempted to enter the school on September 4th, she was confronted by a large, angry white mob that hurled abuse in her direction as she was forced to retreat from the school. Later that day, the other eight students were denied admission by the National Guard unit stationed at the school. It was at this point that the federal government officially became involved in the case for the first time, as Judge Ronald Davies, who on September 3rd had ordered integration to proceed forthwith, asked the Justice Department to enter the case9. After the nine children had been forced to retreat from Central High again after another integration attempt on September 23rd, President Eisenhower resorted to drastic measures. He federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent army troops from the 101st Airborne to maintain order in Little Rock and

8 9

Freyer, p. 57, 92. Freyer p. 104.

8 ensure the students safety at Central High. Order was soon restored, but at a high political cost to Eisenhower and his administration. The use of federal force in Little Rock would have important implications for James Merediths attempt to integrate the University of Mississippi just four years later. Although Kennedy had criticized Eisenhowers use of regular army troops when campaigning for the presidency in 1960, he would be forced to do the same after U.S. marshals were unable to maintain order in Oxford, Mississippi in the fall of 1962. The Little Rock crisis also revealed the importance of state politics in shaping the reaction to integration of governors such as Orval Faubus and later Ross Barnett in Mississippi. Although Faubus had held fairly moderate views on integration before the crisis, pressure from pro-segregation forces within Arkansas heavily influenced his decision making. Faced with a similar situation in Mississippi, Ross Barnett, who had already been known as a staunch segregationist, would take an even stronger stand against federal interference. While the integration standoff in Little Rock had been created by a wide array of actors and interest groups, the Mississippi crisis would be set in motion by the actions of one lone Mississippian, James Meredith. Having been influenced by the Supreme Courts Brown decision and the collision of federal and state forces in Little Rock, Meredith would set in motion events which would lead to a violent confrontation on the campus of the University of Mississippi in September 1962.

9 Merediths Story Born in rural Kosciusko, Mississippi, James Howard Meredith grew up in such a segregated environment that it was not until he was fifteen years old that he realized he was actually a member of what whites in Mississippi considered to be an inferior race10. It was at this young age that Meredith dedicated himself to changing the racial climate of his home state. Although it might seem that fifteen is quite young to have decided on any specific life goals, Meredith writes, By the time I was in high school whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to be or what I wanted to do, I would reply, I want to be a man [in contrast to being a Negro man or a colored man], run for the governor of the state of Mississippi, and get a degree from the University of Mississippi, in reverse order11. In working to achieve the latter goal, Meredith would be influenced by a wide variety of life experiences and political and legal developments that would eventually culminate in his registration as an undergraduate at the University of Mississippi on October 1st, 1962. After attending segregated public schools in Mississippi through his senior year in high school, which he finished at another segregated high school in Florida, Meredith joined the Air Force upon his graduation in 1951. It was here that he first experienced life in an integrated environment, joining the military three years after Trumans Executive Order 9981 called for the integration of the United States armed forces12. Coming from such a segregated society in Mississippi, Merediths Air Force service must have been an eye opening experience. During his nine years in the service, Meredith took college courses at four different schools, living, working, and studying with both black and white airmen. Although racism undoubtedly still existed to some extent within
10 11

Meredith, James. Three Years in Mississippi. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1966, p 17. Meredith, p. 50. 12 Doyle, William. An American Insurrection: The Battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962. New York: Doubleday, 2001, p. 19.

10 the armed forces during this period, Merediths experiences in the Air Force, both academically and in his daily life, strengthened his resolve to return to Mississippi and pursue an education at Ole Miss. While still serving abroad in the military, events back in the United States would help to crystallize Merediths strategy for successfully integrating Ole Miss. Not only was the standoff over school integration in Little Rock an important step towards implementation of the Brown court decision, but it also demonstrated to Meredith that the only way he would succeed in his effort was by creating a direct conflict between federal and state authorities in Mississippi. On his own, he knew that he would have little chance of succeeding, but if federal authorities were forced to intervene to uphold the orders of the courts, Mississippi would have to give in when faced with overwhelming force. Little Rock, Meredith explained in a 2000 interview, was a very, very big factor in my whole desire to break the system of white supremacy. I genuinely believed that the only way that we would get our full rights of citizenship was to get a greater military force on our side than Mississippi had, and that was the U.S. armed forces. So when Eisenhower, who had been the biggest general in our history, committed the troops to support the rights of citizenship, that was what my objective was in the whole Mississippi scheme13. Although Meredith knew that the forces of segregation were stronger in his home state than they had been in Arkansas in 1957, the manner in which Eisenhower was forced to intervene gave him hope that the federal government would have no choice but to do the same in Mississippi. After his discharge from the Air Force in 1960, Meredith returned home to Kosciusko and to the institutionalized system of segregation that he had been able to
13

Doyle, p. 21.

11 escape during his nine years in the service. Soon after his return, both he and his wife enrolled in Jackson State College, an all-black state school in Jackson, Mississippi. It was here that he began his campaign to be admitted to his original school of choice, the University of Mississippi at Oxford. While attending Jackson State, Meredith was again able to take heart from events taking place on a national scale, as he saw the election of John F. Kennedy in 1961 as improving the federal governments stance on civil rights protections. Meredith recalled that, since the election was one of the closest in the history of the United States and the Negro vote had been widely reported as being the decisive factor, the new Democratic administration was on the spot and would be forced to act under pressure14. While Meredith hoped that he would be one to apply some of this pressure, the political situation in Mississippi was not nearly as favorable as he expected it to be on the national level. Just the year before, Mississippians had elected Ross Barnett as governor on a white supremacist and strongly anti-integration platform. Although Barnett would prove to be a large obstacle in his attempt to register at Ole Miss, the governor would certainly precipitate the large-scale conflict between federal and state authorities that Meredith felt would be necessary to ensure his admission to and subsequent protection at the school. After taking classes at Jackson State for five months, Meredith decided that it was time to apply to Ole Miss. In a symbolic gesture, Meredith chose January 21st, 1961, the day after President Kennedy was inaugurated, to send the first of many letters to the Registrar at Ole Miss, this one requesting that an application be sent to him for the upcoming spring semester15. It was not until ten days later, having received the requested

14 15

Meredith, p. 51. Meredith, p. 55.

12 application and now sending the completed forms back to the University that Meredith revealed he was in fact an African-American. Suddenly, the tone of his correspondence with the Registrar changed considerably. In contrast to the polite reply he received after his application request, Meredith received the following terse telegram several days later: For your information and guidance it has been found necessary to discontinue consideration of all applications for admission or registration for the second semester which were received after January 25 1961. Your application was received subsequent to such date and thus we must advise you not to appear for registration16. It is curious that the Registrar did not inform Meredith of this deadline in his previous letter, considering he sent the application information to Meredith on January 26th, one day after this supposed deadline. The reason he did not mention it in his earlier letter was that the deadline had not existed at that point. It was created after the University received Merediths application, solely for the purpose of keeping him out of the school. This decision was the first in a long line of moves made by the schools Board of Trustees with the same goal in mind, although ironically it was pointed out later that in the long run these new rules actually worked to keep many more whites than AfricanAmericans out of the school. Regardless of these consequences, the school was willing to make any number of changes to its admissions process to prevent Meredith from qualifying for admission. Even before he received his rejection telegram, Merediths first course of action was to contact Medgar Evers, field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi and one of the several men who had challenged Ole Misss integration policies before him. Evers encouraged Meredith to contact Thurgood Marshall, the director of the NAACPs Legal
16

Meredith, p. 58.

13 Defense Fund, in order to request legal representation in his case, realizing that the only way to secure admission would be through a court order which could then be enforced by federal authorities. He was assigned a lawyer by the NAACP, Constance Baker Motley (who in effect had already contributed to Merediths case with her involvement in writing briefs for the NAACP in the Brown case), and Motley immediately began advising him on how to respond to the schools rejection. After replying to the rejection telegram with a request that his application be considered for the schools summer term, as it was too late to register for the spring semester, Meredith did not hear back from the school until May 9th, 1961, over three months after he had requested a response to his previous letter. The school responded by informing Meredith that only a fraction of his transfer credits would be accepted by the school, and asked if he was still interested in applying. This turned out to be another delay tactic, as the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning, which oversaw Ole Miss and Mississippis other state schools, would later change the admissions requirements again, saying that students could not be accepted as transfers from colleges that were not members the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. Conveniently, Merediths school, Jackson State College, was not a member of this association17. Despite the fact that Jackson State was an official state school accredited by the Mississippi College Accreditation Commission, the states formal accreditation body, in addition to being one of the state schools under the Boards control, it was decided that it was not on the same academic level as Ole Miss. This decision would have been an ironic commentary on the failure of Plessys separate but equal doctrine had the Board realized what it was saying. Instead, the trustees were simply hoping to create another technicality that could be used to keep
17

Meredith, p. 77.

14 Meredith out of the school. As many white applicants to Ole Miss traditionally transferred from schools not in the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, this new rule once again went well beyond solely preventing James Merediths admission to the school, proving that the Board of Trustees was willing to go to great lengths to keep the school segregated. Meredith knew that the Board of Trustees would never capitulate without considerable judicial and federal pressure. Therefore, on May 31st, 1961, he filed a suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi in Jackson, asking for an injunction against the Board of Trustees, the Chancellor, the Dean of Liberal Arts, and the Registrar of Ole Miss, preventing them from discriminating against any applicant of color wishing to apply to the University of Mississippi18. Upon filing this lawsuit, Meredith embarked on sixteen month long legal battle with the Board of Trustees, a battle that would eventually grow to encompass the governor and the state of Mississippi itself. When the first hearing in his motion for a preliminary injunction against the Board of Trustees began on June 12th,1961 in Biloxi, Meredith and his lawyers task seemed to be quite easy on the one hand, and potentially impossible on the otherto prove that the University of Mississippi had a systematic policy of segregation in place. While the proof of the schools de facto segregation was incontrovertible, as no AfricanAmerican student had actually attended Ole Miss in its 113 year history, proving that the school had a documented policy of denying applicants admission based solely on their race was a different story altogether. This goal would be further complicated with the

18

Lawsuit, James H. Meredith v Charles Dickson Fair et al., Ole Miss Integration: James Meredith, July 25, 1958-January 25, 1961 and undated folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, John F. Kennedy Library.

15 case being presided over by Judge S.C. Mize, who would give the Board of Trustees every benefit of the doubt and ultimately use a twisted logic to defend its policies. Although Meredith had been forced to deal with a wide variety of delay tactics on the part of the Registrar and Board of Trustees while originally attempting to secure his registration, the bureaucracy and repeated delays he would face in the Mississippi court system would make the actions of these officials seem downright accommodating by comparison. Due to the full court schedule of Judge Mize, the poor health of the Assistant Attorney General Dugas Shands, and any number of other unexpected issues, the hearings on Merediths request for preliminary injunction dragged on through the summer and into the fall, as Meredith missed one registration deadline after another for the upcoming school terms. Finally, on December 14th, six months after Meredith had filed suit, and two-and-a-half months after the deadline for registration for the fall semester, Judge Mize finally reached a decision on the preliminary injunction request. He denied Merediths request for an injunction against the Board of Trustees and the other defendants, asserting, The testimony shows, and I find as fact, that there was no discrimination against any student, and particularly the plaintiff, solely because of his race or color19. Merediths attorney Baker Motley immediately appealed Judge Mizes ruling to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and requested that the Court of Appeals issue its own injunction against the Board of Trustees. She feared, rightly as it turned out, that Meredith would never receive a fair trial in Judge Mizes District Court. While Meredith and his team did not get everything they wanted from the Court of Appeals, they did make some headway, the greatest victory perhaps being that the Court made a ruling in less than a month, a record time for anything involved with
19

Barrett, p. 57-58.

16 Merediths case. While the Court did not grant the injunction against the Board of Trustees that Meredith had hoped for, it did overrule Judge Mize on several issues and ordered him to expedite the upcoming trial, with Judge John Minor Wisdom noting, the case was tried below and argued here in an eerie atmosphere of never-never landa full trial on the merits [of the case] is needed in order to clarify the muddy record now before us20. While it is doubtful that Judge Mizes court was the best place to be clarifying anything, the Court of Appeals felt that it did not have a clear enough picture of the case to make a ruling. Although it might have been perfectly obvious that the University of Mississippi was a segregated institution, it was not clear to the Court of Appeals that this was the reason Meredith had been denied admission. Back in Judge Mizes courtroom, which had been moved from Biloxi to Jackson during the course of the preliminary injunction hearings, the new trial began on January 16th. Spurred by the Court of Appeals orders for a speedy trial, and probably more importantly by the fact that Judge Mize had all but reached his conclusion on the merits of Merediths case during the preliminary injunction hearings, the trial lasted less than three weeks. When the members of the Board of Trustees took the stand during the trial, each testified in turn that they had not seen Merediths application personally, nor had race ever come up in the Boards discussions of admissions requirements at any of the states schools21. Furthermore, they argued that James Meredith had been denied admission for the simple fact that he did not meet several of the admissions requirements that every student needed to adhere to in order to be admitted to the school. The fact that some of these requirements, such as requiring five letters of recommendation from Ole

20 21

Barrett, p. 59, 61. Meredith, p. 133-134.

17 Miss Alumni, specifically targeted blacks, and that several others had been created in response to Merediths application was conveniently excluded from this testimony. Nevertheless, with the burden of proof securely on Merediths shoulders, it was difficult to provide damning evidence of the Boards actions. On February 3rd Judge Mize reached his decision, going beyond his original statement that Meredith had not been discriminated against in the application process, pronouncing, The proof shows, and I find as fact, that the University is not a racially segregated institution22. Considering what the proof presented before the court actually showed, this pronouncement is almost mind-boggling. However, Meredith and his legal team had expected such resistance from the court system within Mississippi, and once again appealed the ruling to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. After another long delay, Meredith would finally get the court order he had long known would be the leverage necessary to involve the federal government and secure his admittance to the University of Mississippi. On June 25th, 1962, in split 2-1 decision, the Court of Appeals overturned the ruling of Judge Mizes District Court, ordering Merediths immediate admittance to the University and instructing the District Court to issue the injunction requested in the original suit. In its decision, the court cited an earlier case involving the University of Alabama, in which the court had found, There is no written policy or rule excluding prospective students from the University on account of race or color. However, there is a tacit policy to that effect23. This decision certainly applied to the situation at the University of Mississippi, but it is unclear why it took so long for the Court of Appeals to acknowledge this fact. Had the court ruled in favor of

22 23

Lord, Walter. The Past That Would Not Die. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1965, p. 109. Meredith, p. 160.

18 Merediths request for an injunction in its first hearing on the case in January, he might have been able to register for school in time for the 1962 spring term. However, finally receiving a court order to support his entrance to Ole Miss did not mean Merediths battle was over. It simply meant that this battle was now shifting into a new phase, one that would bring Mississippi authorities into direct conflict with the Justice Department and the Kennedy administration. Although the Court of Appeals had overturned the decision of the District Court, machinations within the court system continued for the next several months. Judge B.F. Cameron, a member of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals who had not been involved in Merediths case, decided to personally involve himself by repeatedly issuing stays against the courts order for Merediths admission, essentially blocking the courts orders from being carried out24. Four times Judge Cameron issued his stays, and the first three times they were overturned by the Circuit Court. Finally, in an attempt to permanently prevent Judge Cameron from interfering in the case, the Justice Department stepped in and took an active part in Merediths case for the first time, filing a brief of amicus curiae with Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black to throw out Camerons stays25. Although Merediths case had been closely monitored by Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Burke Marshall and his staff, the federal government had not been involved in the case up to this point. This was a turning point in Merediths case, as the Kennedy administration had finally been dragged into the fight, and there was no turning back. Justice Black vacated all of Camerons stays, moving Merediths case from the courts into the political

24

Chronology. June 2002. Integrating Ole Miss, John F. Kennedy Library and Museum. 8 April 2006. http://www.jfklibrary.org/meredith/contro_02fr.html 25 Barrett, p. 90.

19 arena, in what would become a battle of attrition between the Kennedy administration and Governor Ross Barnett and other state officials.

20 Legal Issues in Mississippi Resistance Merediths case against the Board of Trustees reached critical mass when Governor Barnett decided that the legal battle would make an excellent political platform for himself, and pledged that none of Mississippis institutions of higher learning would be integrated while he was governor. With this goal in mind, Barnett declared on September 13th that, the operation of the public schools, universities and colleges of the State of Mississippi is vested in the duly elected and appointed officials to uphold and enforce the laws duly and legally enacted by the Legislature of the State of Mississippi26. Barnett claimed that, as governor, he had authority to control the Board of Trustees, and he ordered them to continue resisting the decision of the Court of Appeals to allow Meredith to register. With this move, Barnett put the state of Mississippi in direct conflict with the federal courts, and therefore, with the federal government itself. Such open defiance of federal authority all but guaranteed that the Justice Department would become fully involved in the case. The genesis of this decision can be traced both to the Mississippi legislatures 1956 response to the Brown court decision, and to Barnetts personal views on integration, or, perhaps more importantly, to his own political aspirations in Mississippi. Ross Barnett had always been a staunch segregationist, running for office in 1959 with the support of the Citizens Council, a white supremacist group which boasted a great deal of influence in Mississippi and throughout the South. Known for such memorable quotes as, I believe that the Good Lord was the original segregationist and the Negro is different because God made him different to punish him27, Barnett was

26 27

Meredith, p. 167. Doyle, p. 52.

21 certainly inclined to fight integration in his state at any cost. However, he had additional motivation knowing that he could gain significant political mileage out of a strong stance against the integration of Ole Miss. Barnetts support in Mississippi had been waning in the aftermath of several public scandals, and he needed to make a stand on a popular issue such as integration. Just as Arkansas governor Orval Faubus had come to realize during the Little Rock integration crisis five years earlier, Barnett knew that many southerners considered segregation a political issue of the highest importance28. What better issue to rally the people of Mississippi to his side than resistance to an assault on one of the states most cherished customs? Perhaps equally important to Barnetts political views was the cloak of authority given to his violation of the Court of Appeals order by the Mississippi legislatures 1956 Resolution of Interposition. Drafted in response to the Supreme Courts decision in Brown v Board of Education, this resolution invoked the supposedly long-since invalidated theory of interposition, which states that, The United States is a compact of states, any one of which may interpose its sovereignty against the enforcement within its borders of any decision of the Supreme Court or act of Congress, irrespective of the fact that the constitutionality of the act has been established by decision of the Supreme Court29. Argued in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the theory of interposition as a protection of states rights had since been invalidated repeatedly by the Supreme Court. Nevertheless, in its 1956 Resolution of Interposition, the Mississippi state legislature decided that the theory could be applied to

28 29

Doyle, p. 6. Memorandum, Harold Greene to Burke Marshall, September 27, 1962, Issues in Contempt Proceedings against Ross Barnett: Memorandum folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL.

22 its attempt to circumvent the Courts Brown decision. (Incidentally, Mississippi was not alone in this belief. Arkansas and Georgia had recently passed similar resolutions). The resolution called for Mississippi officials to remain true to the states Constitution and all of its statutes, and declared that these officials, are further directed and required to prohibit, by any lawful, peaceful and constitutional means, the implementation of or compliance with the Integration Decisions of the United States Supreme Court30. Although Barnett felt that this resolution was all he needed to combat the Court of Appeals decision, the states stance on interposition is shown to be completely invalid on the most cursory of inspections. The Resolution of Interposition called for state officials to use constitutional means to do something which was unconstitutionalto resist implementing a decision of the Supreme Court. Apparently this contradiction was lost both on the drafters of this resolution and on Governor Barnett himself. However, Barnett would repeatedly make clear in the weeks leading up to the riots in Oxford that he felt that Mississippis legal system had the right to work independently of the federal system, despite the unconstitutionality of such a stance. Although the Justice Department had already become involved in Merediths case with its filing of a brief of amicus curiae in his support, Barnetts stance drew the upper levels of the Kennedy administration farther into the struggle. Barnetts actual commitment to the theory of interposition is in doubt, as William Doyle quotes the governor in private contradicting his public stance, saying, of course I know interposition is invalid. Im bluffing31. Nevertheless, his pronouncements of the preeminence of Mississippis laws and court system never faltered during the crisis.

30 31

Barrett, p. 49. Doyle, p. 77.

23 Speaking with Attorney General Kennedy on September 25th, Barnett made several statements that are quite preposterous considering his avowed respect for the Constitution and its role in American society. When asked about his feelings on the role of the federal courts in Merediths lawsuit, Barnett responded, I consider the Mississippi courts as high as any court and a lot more capableten times more capableand [with] a lot more integrity and honesty than any federal courts except maybe for the district court here in Mississippi32. However, the Supremacy Clause in Article VI of the Constitution states: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. While Barnett felt that because the Mississippi courts had such a high level of integrity, they had the right to overrule federal decisions when it was deemed necessary, the Constitution clearly states the primacy of federal authority. The governor did not limit the importance of his own personal opinions on the court simply to the question of jurisdiction within the Mississippi court system, but applied the same logic to interpreting the decisions of the Supreme Court. As he explained to Attorney General Kennedy: I think you owe it to the American people to tell the Supreme Court that the Brown vs. Topeka decision is not the law of the land when they dont follow the Constitutionits so plain and unmistakableI follow the law of the land instead33. Because he felt that the Brown decision was unconstitutional,
32

Telephone Transcript, Conversation between RFK and Governor Ross Barnett, Monday, September 24 1962, at 9:50p.m., Telephone Transcripts September 24-25, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. 33 Telephone Transcript, Conversation between RFK and Governor Ross Barnett, Tuesday, September 25 1962, at 7:35p.m., Telephone Transcripts September 24-25, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL.

24 Barnett decided that Mississippi would indeed follow this law of the land, which was apparently whatever he interpreted it to be. If this intractable stance was the one that Barnett would use throughout the integration crisis, the Justice Department and the Kennedy administration would be hard pressed to get Barnett to cooperate with them in any way. In an effort to force him to cooperate more fully, the Justice Department brought civil contempt charges against Barnett and Lt. Governor Paul Johnson, charging both men to cease blocking Merediths court ordered registration. On September 24th, the Court of Appeals had found that the Board of Trustees had knowingly violated the courts order to allow Meredith to register, and facing contempt charges, the Board members promised not to take any further action to block Merediths registration34. After seeing this tactic convince the formerly recalcitrant trustees to cave in, the Justice Department hoped that the same approach would work with the governor. As Barnett had taken on the powers of the Board of Trustees in order to deny Merediths admission personally, he had subjected himself to the Court of Appeals September 13th injunction barring the University from preventing Merediths admission. On September 28th, the court found Barnett guilty of civil contempt, and ruled that he had until October 2nd to purge himself or face a daily $10,000 fine for continued noncompliance35. While the Justice Department hoped that this threat would be sufficient to force Barnett to comply, this was by no means a guarantee. Barnett had proclaimed on more than one occasion that he would be more than happy to go to jail to prevent Ole Misss integration, and his actions during the height of the crisis did nothing to contradict this stance. However, bringing
34

Chronology, May 31 1961-September 24 1962, Chronologies, May 31 1961-October 19 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 19, JFKL. 35 Barrett, p. 120.

25 civil contempt charges was not the only strategy the Kennedy administration was pursuing in dealing with Barnetts resistance.

26 Verbal Sparring While the most newsworthy confrontation of the Mississippi crisis occurred between rioters and federal marshals in Oxford on the evening of September 30th, there was an equally important, if more subtle, confrontation occurring over the previous fifteen or so days, one that would set the stage for the turbulent days to come. In an effort to compel Governor Barnett to comply with the ruling of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, a flurry of calls between the White House and the Governor began on September 15th, and continued with increasing regularity through the evening of September 30th and beyond. Although it seems that the integration issue did not receive President Kennedys personal attention until several days before the events of September 30th36, there were at least twenty-two documented calls between Governor Barnett and Attorney General Kennedy during this period, and many more between Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Burke Marshall and Governor Barnetts attorney Tom Watkins. Additionally, President Kennedy spoke with Governor Barnett at least seven times in the two days leading up to the riots in Oxford, and tried repeatedly to convince the governor to cooperate with federal authorities. The unifying theme of these conversations, which is quite amazing considering the circumstances, is the length to which the Kennedys and the Justice Department went to appease Barnett in order to avoid violence over Merediths registration. The federal governments strategy allowed Barnett every opportunity to save face politically and shift the blame for the conflict onto the Kennedy administration, all to avoid direct physical conflict between federal and state authorities. Violence between protesters and authorities was worrying enough, but a pitched battle between federal marshals and
36

Burke Marshall Oral History Interview, June 14 1964, p 74, John F. Kennedy Library.

27 Mississippi highway patrol and police officers would have been catastrophic for the administration. Not only would this have been a public relations nightmare, but it would have conjured up Civil War and Reconstruction-era memories for many southerners who were already wary of federal interference in their affairs. Therefore, Attorney General Kennedy and the Justice Department were willing to ignore Barnetts combative public rhetoric as long as he cooperated in private in negotiating a deal to peacefully register Meredith. But just how effective was this policy of appeasement in preventing violence? Federal and state authorities did not end up clashing physically on September 30th, at least not on any large scale, but Barnetts continued public defiance of federal authorities, which had the tacit support of the Kennedy administration, almost certainly whipped up emotions and contributed to the violence of that night. The crux of the matter was whether Barnett would actually order the highway patrol to forcefully resist federal marshals. Based on telephone conversations between the governor and the Kennedys leading up to the night of the 30th, it seems that Barnett was thinking irrationally enough to make such an order, or at the very least wanted federal authorities to believe that he was willing to do so. Governor Barnett and Attorney General Kennedy made several agreements in the days leading up to September 30th regarding how to register James Meredith while avoiding violence. The first agreement, discussed on September 26th by Burke Marshall and Barnetts attorney Tom Watkins, and finalized between Robert Kennedy and Barnett on September 27th, called for the marshals to make a symbolic show of force by drawing their guns when confronted by the Mississippi Highway Patrol, at which point Barnett

28 would be able to say that he was surrendering to the overwhelming force of federal authority, and that he had no choice but to give in to prevent violence37,38. It was arranged beforehand that the highway patrol would leave its firearms behind in order to prevent any violence, and once Meredith was brought in, both state and federal authorities would work to keep law and order. However, this plan soon fell apart when the governor refused to cooperate when the time came to act. In one of his oral history interviews, Burke Marshall notes, there was a show of force made on that basis on Wednesday [September 26th] by Jim McShane,he didnt get through, and I talked to Tom Watkins again after that, and he said, Well, there wasnt a big enough show of force39. A second attempt was proposed for the next day, but eventually abandoned when it was decided that Barnett and the highway patrol would not be sufficiently in control of the crowd to ensure the plans success. The second proposed plan, which was not as well documented as the first, was to send Meredith to the University of Mississippi in Jackson to register on Monday, and then bring him to Oxford on Tuesday to begin classes. The object was to allow Governor Barnett to feign ignorance of federal actions and make it appear as if he did not break his promise to keep Meredith from registering while, more importantly, avoiding the crowds that would be waiting for him in Oxford. Although the transcript of President Kennedy and Governor Barnett discussing this plan on September 29th does not seem to have survived, their conversation is referenced in a phone call between Barnett and Robert

37

Memorandum, Burke Marshall to Robert Kennedy, October 3, 1962, Telephone Transcripts September 27, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. 38 Telephone Transcript, Conversation Between RFK and Governor Barnett, Wednesday, Sept. 27, 1962 at 2:50pm, Telephone Transcripts September 27, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. 39 Burke Marshall Oral History Interview, June 14 1964, p 75, JFKL.

29 Kennedy on the 30th40, and in one of Burke Marshalls oral history interviews recorded in 196441. Once again, negotiations broke down due to Barnetts delay tactics and Kennedys concerns about preventing violence on the Oxford campus. Although problems existed in both of the plans proposed to register Meredith while attempting to avoid violence, perhaps the biggest miscalculation made by the Kennedy administration during negotiations was the effect that Governor Barnetts public stance would have on students and others involved in the riots. The Kennedys were willing to allow Barnett to say pretty much whatever he wanted in public, short of specifically advocating violence against federal authorities, as long as he cooperated with them in private and allowed Meredith to register for classes. Obviously they would have liked for him to come out publicly in support of Merediths registration, but they knew he would never voluntarily agree to this because of the political ramifications of such a move within Mississippi, not to mention Barnetts own personal views on the issue. Nevertheless, Barnetts continued stance of resistance to federal authority in public almost certainly raised tensions throughout the state and helped to escalate the violence that occurred in and around Oxford. Beginning with his radio and television address broadcasted on September 13th, Governor Barnett assured the people of Mississippi that he would do everything in his power to prevent the integration of any of the states schools, and stressed that it was the duty of every loyal Mississippian to join him in that struggle.

40

Telephone Transcript, Telephone Conversation between Attorney General and Governor Barnett. Governor Barnett Called Sunday 12:45 p.m., September 30, 1962, Telephone Transcripts: September 28October 5, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. 41 Burke Marshall Oral History Interview, June 14 1964, p 76, JFKL.

30

He announced, The day of reckoning has been delayed as long as possible. It is now upon us. This is the day, and this is the hour. Knowing you as I do, there is no doubt in my mind what the overwhelming majority of loyal Mississippians will do. They will never submit to the moral degradation, to the shame and the ruin which have faced all others who have lacked the courage to defend their beliefs42. Barnett does not elaborate on how exactly Mississippians should go about defending themselves from this moral degradation, but this announcement could certainly be interpreted as a call for physical resistance to integration if necessary. The governor continued to make public announcements over the following week and a half, including a brief speech at halftime of an Ole Miss-Kentucky football game on the night of September 29th that stirred up passions on campus considerably43. Barnett became more and more adamant about his opposition to integration in public over the last several days of private negotiations with the Kennedys, and as late as 11 p.m. on the night of the 30th, as hundreds were rioting on the University campus, he was still advocating resistance. In his statement that night he proclaimed, My friends, I repeat to the people of Mississippi now, I will never yield a single inch in my determination to win the fight we are engaged in. I call upon every Mississippian to keep his faith and his courage. We will never surrender44. This type of rhetoric was certainly not conducive to preventing violence on

42

Governor Ross Barnetts Proclamation to the People of Mississippi. June 2002. Integrating Ole Miss, John F. Kennedy Library and Museum. 4 March 2006. http://www.jfklibrary.org/meredith/contro_02fr.html 43 Barrett, p. 121-122. 44 Press Release, Statement by Governor Ross Barnett of Mississippi 11:00 p.m., CST, September 30, 1962, Telephone Transcripts: September 28-October 5, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL.

31 campus, and with many Mississippians taking their cues from the governor, it almost certainly contributed to the events of September 30th. The influence that Barnett had over the people of Mississippi when it came to his views on the desegregation issue should not be underestimated. During his brief football game speech, in which he spoke about the importance of defending Mississippis values and cultural heritage, Barnett managed to whip the spectators into such a frenzy that one of them recalled that he, felt that if Barnett gave the word, all 41,000 people would burst out of the stadium and march 170 miles north to Oxford to surround the university, and another 50,000 more would join them on the way45. Although this was a bit of hyperbole on behalf of this spectator, perhaps it was not very far from the truth. Burke Marshall recalls how a rumor of Governor Barnetts imminent arrest on contempt charges circled on the 29th or 30th, and within minutes there were two or three thousand people around the governors mansion to protect him against arrest by federal authorities46. Although Barnett had never really enjoyed such widespread support among his constituents before, having been described in the New York Times as a somewhat pale political figure47, he had at last found an issue that could be used to rally the people of Mississippi behind him. And with so many Mississippians ready to rally behind his banner, Barnetts pronouncements against federal involvement at Oxford had a profound effect on the popular resistance to Merediths registration there. When that resistance turned into deadly rioting on the night of September 30th, Barnetts rhetoric was largely to blame.

45 46

Doyle, p. 113. Burke Marshall Oral History Interview, June 14 1964, p 78, JFKL. 47 Showdown New York Times, September 30 1962. Proquest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851-2003) p E1.

32 Did the White House make a mistake in allowing the governor to continue to make such public statements while privately making a deal to allow Merediths registration? Probably. Clearly Kennedy did not want Barnett making antagonistic public remarks, but did he really have any control over the Governors public statements? Surprisingly, the answer to this question was probably yes. This option was not employed to its full potential, but the Kennedys did have ammunition that could have been used to force Barnett to cooperate more fully. The one thing that scared Barnett more than being known as the governor who allowed integration to occur on his watch was the possibility that the people of Mississippi would find out that he actually collaborated with the hated federal authorities in any way in achieving this goal. If the Kennedys released the transcripts of their private negotiations to the public, Barnetts rhetoric about loving Mississippis customs and heritage from his famous football game speech48 would suddenly have rung false, and all the popular support he had gained from his position over the previous weeks would have been lost. The power that the Kennedys had over Barnett on this point was evident when President Kennedy actually did threaten to go on the air and reveal the contents of their previous conversations during his television address on the evening of September 30th. Even at such a late stage in the negotiations, this threat could have been used as a huge advantage to the federal government. However, Kennedy allowed Barnett to talk him out of this course of action, and in doing so the White House lost a key bargaining chip. It is evident from the telephone conversations between the Kennedys and Governor Barnett on the afternoon of the 30th that revealing their previous negotiations would have been devastating to Barnett. Burke Marshall recalled that Barnett, pleaded
48

Barrett, p. 121.

33 in a childish, whining sort of way that the president not do thatand that was the only thing at any time that made an impression on the governor49. Not only was this the one time that the Kennedys made an impression on the governor, but it was the only time that they had any semblance of control over his actions. They used this threat to persuade him to allow Meredith to enter the campus later on that day, for some reason trusting that this time Barnett would actually cooperate. Having received assurances that Barnett would not interfere, Kennedy made his address to the nation without mentioning the negotiations with the governor50. Although Barnett did not physically prevent Meredith from entering the campus this time, the crowds of rioters who had gathered on campus in response to the governors calls for resistance assured that Merediths registration would not go smoothly. Far from cooperating fully, once Kennedy had made his address without mentioning the negotiations, Barnett once again spurred on the rioters in the statement he made at 11 p.m. on the night of the 30th, quoted above. If these threats made such a deep impression on Barnett, why did the Kennedys not press their advantage? If it had been made explicit to Barnett that the negotiations would be made public if he continued to make such antagonistic public statements, whether in Kennedys address to the nation on the night of the 30th or at a later date,
49 50

Burke Marshall Oral History Interview, June 14 1964, p 77, JFKL. Written in 1965, before comprehensive records of the conversations between Barnett and the White House had been released, Ole Miss Professor Russell Barretts book Integration at Ole Miss contains several inconsistencies in relation to the transcripts presently available at the JFK Presidential Library. For example, Barrett writes that Kennedy replied to Barnetts reckless proposal (Barrett 126) on Sunday morning of having the marshals make a show of force before capitulating by threatening to reveal their negotiations. In reality, the Kennedys had been willing to attempt this reckless proposal earlier in the week, and it was only when this agreement did not produce results that Kennedy threatened to go on the air. Additionally, it seems that JFK actually threatened to reveal the plan to surreptitiously bring Meredith to Jackson for registration on October 1st, not the original plan to make a show of force at Oxford. Apparently Barrett was not aware of the existence of this second plan at the time. Barrett acknowledges the potential for such small inconsistencies, writing, Neither Governor Barnett nor the federal government has yet released an authoritative description of the hectic negotiations which concluded with a shaky agreement to bring Meredith to the University. (A Look magazine article has been described as accurate by the Department of Justice) (Barrett 123). Despite these small discrepancies, Barretts book provides a comprehensive, well researched, and often gripping first hand account of the Ole Miss integration crisis.

34 perhaps things would have turned out differently. Without Barnetts exhortations to the people of Mississippi over the last several days of negotiation with the Kennedys to resist federal authorities, the riot might not have reached such violent proportions. And why was this threat not made earlier in the week? By the night of the 27th, the Kennedys had sufficient incriminating recordings to ruin Barnett politically if they so desired. Why wait until the 30th to threaten the governor with them? Although Burke Marshall asserts that Kennedys threat succeeded in that it forced Barnett to allow Meredith onto campus later that day51, it was already too late to prevent or limit the violence that consumed the campus on Merediths arrival. Furthermore, by this point Barnett had been able to stall and outright defy federal authorities with such impunity that he really had no reason to cooperate fully with the White House. It is interesting to note that in secondary source accounts of the Mississippi crisis such as Russell Barretts Integration at Ole Miss, and Walter Lords The Past That Would Not Die, for the most part the authors seem to avoid critiquing the Kennedy administrations handling of the negotiations with Barnett and its overall strategy in dealing with Mississippi authorities. These authors feel that Governor Barnett deserved a great deal of blame for inciting the riots but, ultimately, that he was acting on behalf of the majority of Mississippians who strongly believed in preserving segregation. Additionally, writing in 1965, Barrett was actively attempting to counteract popular opinion in Mississippi and elsewhere in the South at the time that put the blame for starting the riot on trigger happy federal marshals. When Barrett does question federal decision-making leading up to the riot, it is in the context of the sudden decision to send Meredith onto campus late on the 30th, perhaps without significant time for the University
51

Burke Marshall Oral History Interview, October 28 1968, p 15, JFKL.

35 and federal troops to adequately prepare for his arrival. However, federal decisionmaking leading up to the night of the riot was far from successful. The Justice Department and White House allowed Barnett to continually stall and resist federal authority, with disastrous results. William Doyle includes a telling quote from Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach in the conclusion to his book An American Insurrection: I thought it was a failure. We should have been able to accomplish everything without sending in troops, and we didnt. I think the administration deserves criticism for too much dilly-dallyingWe wanted to create a situation where the local people handled it themselves. We wanted a minimum show of force. That is why we failed52. President Kennedy might have done well to look to recent history in deciding how to deal with the Mississippi crisis. Just five years earlier, facing an integration crisis of his own at Little Rock, President Eisenhower understood, if you have to use forceuse overwhelming force and save lives thereby53. As U.S. marshals, federalized Mississippi National Guardsmen, and later regular army troops converged on the Oxford area on the night of September 30th-October 1st, 1962, the conflict between state and federal authorities in Mississippi shifted into a new gear. Once the verbal sparring between the Justice Department, White House, and Governor Barnett had failed to secure the peaceful registration of James Meredith, a physical showdown on campus became imminent.

52 53

Doyle, p. 310. Doyle, p. 12.

36 The Riot After four attempts to register Meredith for classes had failed over the previous ten days, three of which having been personally rebuffed by Governor Barnett or Lieutenant Governor Johnson, Meredith was finally escorted onto campus for the last time in the late afternoon/early evening of Sunday, September 30th. From the very moment of his arrival, and even before he had arrived on campus for that matter, things started to go wrong. President Kennedy and Governor Barnett had agreed in a conversation at 12:45 p.m. on Sunday that it would be best to bring Meredith onto campus that afternoon instead of on Monday morning, which had been the plan up until that point54. According to Barnett, there would be fewer students on campus on a Sunday and therefore a lesser possibility of violence (although with many students returning to campus from the football game in Jackson the previous night, the university grounds were far from deserted on Sunday). However, it seems that both Barnett and the Justice Department failed to inform University officials of this decision until around 4 p.m. on Sunday55, less than half an hour before U.S. marshals began arriving on campus, and only two-and-a-half hours before Meredith himself was to arrive. On this short notice, the school was not able to track down the officials needed to process Merediths registration, nor were they able to attempt to implement any plan to control students and others on campus on the event of Merediths arrival. As a result, when Meredith arrived on campus escorted by Chief U.S. Marshal James McShane and other officials, he was simply sent to one of the dorms on campus, Baxter Hall, where he would spend the night before being taken to be registered the next morning. So the afternoon of the 30th, which
54

Telephone Transcript, Telephone Conversation between Attorney General and Governor Barnett. Governor Barnett Called Sunday 12:45 p.m., September 30, 1962, Telephone Transcripts: September 26October 5, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. 55 Barrett, p. 131.

37 began in confusion for University officials and ended rather anticlimactically for Meredith, did not see any resolution of the situation. However, the coming night would be anything but uneventful. At the time of Merediths arrival, there were approximately 170 deputy U.S. marshals on campus under the command of McShane, most of them in the vicinity of the schools Lyceum building, where at first it was expected Meredith would be brought to be registered, and which soon became a base of operations for the marshals. In addition, there were a large detachment of Mississippi Highway Patrol officers, led by Colonel T.B. Birdsong, stationed at the schools entrances and throughout the campus. During the negotiations between the Kennedys and Barnett over the previous week, one of the main bones of contention had been over the role that Mississippi authorities such as the Highway Patrol would play in ensuring Merediths safety and keeping the peace. The Kennedys had been worried that that these patrolmen would actively resist when the marshals tried to enter the campus. Although this eventuality did not come to pass, it became increasingly clear that someone, be it Barnett or some other Mississippi official, had instructed the patrolmen not to assist the marshals in any way. Soon after the Highway Patrol and the marshals had taken up their positions, a group of spectators and protestors began growing on campus. In the first few hours, this crowd grew to between 200 and 500 people, depending on the source, and by later in the night a group of at least 2000 was on campus. As time went on the crowd began to get unruly, jeering at the marshals and calling for Merediths removal. Walter Lord writes, The organized cheering grew louder2-4-1-3, we hate Ken-ne-dy! The yells grew meanergo to Cuba, nigger lovers!and, more ominously, just waitll dark56.
56

Lord, p. 202.

38 Although a large percentage of the crowd were probably students at the beginning of the evening, Russell Barrett, who was a Professor at the University and experienced the night firsthand, estimates that at least one-third of the protestors at the beginning of the night were not students, and that this percentage grew steadily as the night wore on57. By 7 p.m., the crowd began to get violent, throwing rocks and other debris at the group of marshals surrounding the Lyceum. While this violence was occurring, the Highway Patrol was doing little or nothing to contain the situation. The patrolmen stationed at the campus gates were supposedly there to keep people who were not part of the University community off of the campus, but by all accounts outsiders bent on causing trouble were flowing in throughout the night. The highway patrolmen certainly could not guard the whole perimeter of the campus at once, but carloads of rioters were supposedly able to enter campus through guarded checkpoints. Many of the patrolmen stationed near the rioters were no more helpful. Individual patrolmen did on more than one occasion step in to prevent attacks on the reporters and others who had begun arriving on the scene, but it was obvious that, as a whole, they had been ordered not to assist the marshals. Some of the patrolmen who were particularly set against the schools integration took these orders as an excuse to help the rioters. For example, One student who was having difficulty in releasing the air from a[n Army] truck tire talked with a highway patrolman, then tried again with more success. Another student later asked whether the patrolman had done anything to him. Hell no, he replied, he showed me how58. Such actions undertaken by the highway patrolmen did nothing to help a steadily escalating situation. Barrett goes on to include a

57 58

Barrett, p. 139. Barrett, p. 147.

39 section in his narrative that perfectly sums up the incredible nature of the highway patrolmens position: Here were law officers in a state where arrests were common for breach of peace or failure to move on when ordered to do so. Yet wholesale violations of state and local laws had occurred under the very noses of the patrolmen, who made not a single arrest or identification during the night59. Although the patrolmens actions while on campus were certainly not conducive to keeping the peace, perhaps the biggest impact that the Highway Patrol had on adding to the riots escalation was their sudden pullout from the campus shortly after 7 p.m. With a apparently no warning to the McShane or any of the Justice Department officials present, a call went out over the highway patrol radio that all patrolmen had been ordered out of the campus. Although he later denied having done so, State Senator George Yarbrough, apparently acting under orders of Governor Barnett, is said to have ordered the pullout60. The withdrawal of these troops had a dangerous effect just as the crowd was turning increasingly more violent. Although by this time there were just under 550 federal personnel on campus, made up of deputy marshals, border patrolmen, and federal prison guards61, the Highway Patrols withdrawal had the potential to dangerously destabilize the situation. Not only was the loss of their numbers important (even if they were not being of much assistance), but when the rioters realized that the Mississippi authorities were leaving, they took it as a confirmation that they were justified in their actions. The gravity of this situation is clear when reading the transcript of a telephone call President Kennedy made to Governor Barnett at about 8:14 p.m. that
59 60

Barrett, p. 155. Lord, p. 204. 61 Deposition, Deposition of James Joseph P. McShane, University of Mississippi, Integration of: Depositions, Writs, and Petitions, February 1963-March 1968, Deposition of James J.P. McShane folder, James J.P. McShane Papers, box 2, JFKL.

40 night. Kennedy took it upon himself to talk to Barnett about this matter, and was insistent that the Highway Patrol was needed on the campus, with Barnett assuring him that he had in turn been assured by Colonel Birdsong that the patrolmen had been sent back onto campus in force62. Considering that Barnett was apparently responsible for the patrolmen being ordered to be pulled out in the first place, his agreement with the President on this point is quite disingenuous. As the riot grew more intense between 7 and 8 p.m., the marshals around the Lyceum were forced to use drastic measures, for which they would later be widely criticized within Mississippi (although this criticism was almost certainly unwarranted). Faced with a continuous barrage of flying objects which had already seriously injured several marshals, and having held out as long as possible, Chief Marshal James McShane ordered the marshals to fire tear gas into the crowd. Amazingly, McShane was actually named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by one of the rioters who claimed to have been injured when the tear gas was fired. Although no charges were ever brought against him, McShanes deposition was taken in December 1962, and this document provides a comprehensive first-hand account of the riot. In the moments before ordering the firing of the gas McShane recalls that, There was a tremendous amount of shouting, jeering, rock-throwing, [and] Coca Cola bottle-throwing63, which left the marshals no choice but to fight back to defend themselves. Unfortunately, the tear gas was not effective in dispersing the crowd, and the projectiles being hurled around campus became

62

Telephone Transcript, Telephone Conversation between President Kennedy and Governor Barnett. 8:14p.m., September 30, 1962, Telephone Transcripts: September 26-October 5, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. 63 Deposition, Deposition of James Joseph P. McShane, University of Mississippi, Integration of: Depositions, Writs, and Petitions, February 1963-March 1968, Deposition of James J.P. McShane folder, James J.P. McShane Papers, box 2, JFKL.

41 increasingly more dangerous. Sporadic gun fire began to be heard throughout the campus, with reports of both rifle fire and shotgun blasts being fired. Although no federal troops were killed during the night, which is rather miraculous considering the circumstances, one by one the marshals began to be struck down by bullets and other projectiles. By the end of the night 160 marshals had been hurt, twenty-eight of them with gunshot wounds64, including one marshal who was shot in the throat and barely survived the night. However, two bystanders would not be as lucky as the marshals. Around 9 p.m. French reporter Paul Guihard, who had arrived on campus only minutes before, was found shot to death, apparently shot in the back from a distance of less than one foot. Two hours later, a local Oxford man named Ray Gunter became the nights second casualty, hit in the head by what may or may not have been a stray bullet65. As reports of the growing carnage in Oxford reached the White House, President Kennedy ordered the 155th Infantry division of the Mississippi National Guard, which had been federalized that morning by a presidential order66, to depart immediately to Oxford to quell the riot. Fifty to sixty of these troops arrived on campus around 11 p.m.67 and, although they marched with unloaded guns, their appearance strengthened the position of the Marshals still holding their lines around the Lyceum building. At the same time, Kennedy ordered regular army troops that had been stationed at the OxfordUniversity Airport to proceed immediately to campus to reinforce the embattled marshals. However, it took these troops much longer to organize, and it was not until
64 65

Lord, p. 231. Doyle, p. 162-163, 214-215. 66 Executive Order, Providing Assistance for the Removal of Unlawful Obstructions of Justice in the State of Mississippi, Civil Rights Mississippi, September 27 1962-September 30 1962 folder, Presidents Office Files, box 97, JFKL.
67

Barrett, p. 160.

42 between 1:30 and 2:00 a.m. that 503rd and 716th MP battalions were the first of a growing number of regular army troops to reach the campus, where they were commanded by Brig. General Charles Billingslea. The troops gradually worked to gain control through the rest of the night, and General Billingslea finally declared the area secure at 6:15 a.m.68, over eleven hours after the riot began. Although there were to be further demonstrations within the town of Oxford itself throughout the next several days, the riot at Ole Miss had finally been quashed. At 8 a.m. the next morning James Meredith, who had slept on campus in Baxter Hall through the night of violence, was finally officially registered at the University of Mississippi. Asked by a newsman if he was happy now that he was registered, Meredith replied, This is no happy occasion69. He had achieved one of the life goals he had set for himself as a high schooler in Kosciusko, but at a very steep price indeed.

68 69

Barrett, p. 162. Meredith, p. 212.

43 Lessons Learned There were many outside influences at work in shaping the Kennedy administrations response to the Ole Miss integration crisis. One of the most important of these influences came from a group that had been instrumental in Kennedys election, and despite a growing sense of disillusionment with his civil rights policies, were still vital to his partys control of Congress: southern Democrats. Throughout his campaign for the presidency and the early years of his administration, Kennedy had performed an extremely precarious balancing act, drawing supporters both from the ranks of civil rights activists and black voters, and from pro-segregationist Congressmen and white voters in the South. Despite the obvious conflict of interests between these two groups, Kennedy had been attempting to hold his coalition together by avoiding any drastic measures and advocating a glacial change approach to civil rights reforms. As historian David Niven describes it, glacial change meant, a lack of imposed change, a lack of forced change, something approaching natural change from within, a process that by definition takes considerable time70. This approach ended up alienating many on both sides of the divide, as civil rights activists were not happy with what they considered to be cosmetic changes, while dedicated segregationists could not accept that change was coming, even if it was a long way down the road. However, Kennedy needed support from southern Democrats if he wanted to get legislation such as his proposed 1963 Civil Rights Act through Congress, and with the losses he had already sustained in the South with even the smallest steps toward racial equality, he would need to actively pursue black voters if he was to be reelected in 1964. Before applying to Ole Miss, James Meredith believed that
70

Niven, David. The Politics of Injustice: The Kennedys, the Freedom Rides, and the Electoral Consequences of a Moral Compromise. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2003, p. 6.

44 the Kennedy administration would be forced to take a stronger stand on civil rights issues because of the support it had received from black voters in the 1960 presidential election. The impact of these black voters would be even greater in the 1964 elections, and knowing this Kennedy struggled to hold his fragile political coalition together. There was another fundamental problem with Kennedys glacial change approach. Perhaps unexpectedly, the morality of the civil rights movement compelled President Kennedy to advocate for racial equality more forcefully than it was politically expedient to do so. Much like his brother, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. writes that Robert Kennedys, concern for civil rights had steadily deepened as his duties had confronted him with the horror of Negro inequality71. Just as it had for President Kennedy, the true nature of the Souths system of segregation was beginning to pierce the nations conscious. This trend was a product both of Brown v. Board of Education and similar precedents that gave African-Americans the legal backing to seek their constitutional rights, and of the Souths reaction to their attempts to do so. James Merediths battle to integrate the University of Mississippi is the perfect example of this trend. It was hard for the American population as a whole to ignore the civil rights issue when the president was being forced to mobilize 30,000 troops to respond to Mississippis defiance of courtordered integration, which as William Doyle points out was more than the total number of U.S. troops that had fought in Korea72. Such incidents forced the average American to contemplate the effects of segregation, and in Merediths case even swayed some southerners who felt that Governor Barnett had gone too far and in the process managed

71

Schlesinger, Jr., Arthur M. A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965, p. 962. 72 Doyle, p. 278.

45 to dishonor Mississippians and the South as a whole with his resistance to federal authority. Not only did his actions shed light on the broader civil rights struggle in Mississippi and throughout the South, but Meredith had a large impact on how both the federal government and state authorities dealt with future integration crises. Years after the Oxford crisis, Merediths NAACP legal counselor Constance Baker Motley would say that Oxford, put an end to massive resistance [to integration]after that, there was no further need for federal troops in the struggle73. Although the University of Alabama faced an integration crisis of its own in 1963, by this point the lessons learned in Oxford made for a significantly less hostile situation. Unlike Governor Barnett, Alabama Governor George Wallace did capitulate after a show of federal force, and while Barnett had held out hope that President Kennedy would not have to courage to fully commit troops, Wallace knew that Kennedy would respond with extreme force if necessary. Wallace still hoped to gain politically from his stand in the schoolhouse door, but he was fully aware that integration was inevitable. This was the profound effect that the Oxford crisis had on the integration of the Souths public schools; integration became less a matter of if and more a matter of when. Although Ole Misss integration crisis helped push Kennedy toward a more direct stance on civil rights, the conflicting influences that had defined much of his administration did contribute to the White Houses equivocation on how to deal with Governor Barnett and plan for Merediths registration. As part of his appeal to southern voters during the 1960 election, President Kennedy had been critical of Eisenhower resorting to the use of troops in Little Rock in 1957. Kennedy certainly did not want to
73

Doyle, p. 296.

46 be viewed as an outsider meddling in the Souths affairs, and this would have influenced his decision to avoid sending in federalized Mississippi National Guard or Army troops if at all possible. According to Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, Kennedy, had almost a thing about sending in troops74. Worried that he would not be able to keep the support of key southern Democrats in Congress, and contemplating the steady decline in his approval ratings among southern whites, Kennedy was in no rush to turn the integration of Ole Miss into a national incident that defined him as a strong supporter of desegregation. However, in this cautious approach, he allowed events in Oxford to escalate to the point that the rioting on the night of September 30th, 1962 became unavoidable. Although Kennedys need to appease his southern supporters is an obvious political reason for avoiding confrontation at Ole Miss, this is no excuse for letting events spiral out of control. Should the President have ignored Mississippis outright defiance of the federal court system to mollify his supporters? Prudence is one thing, but Kennedy had an obligation to act to keep the peace and uphold the decision of the courts. Eventually, he was forced by events outside of his control to intercede with force, but his delay had been costly. The integration crisis at the University of Mississippi exposed both the worst and the best of President Kennedys commitment to civil rights. While Kennedy was often over-cautious in addressing civil rights issues for fear of losing his already faltering southern Democratic support base, during the latter part of his presidency he used seminal events such as the Mississippi integration crisis and the civil rights struggle in Birmingham, Alabama of May 1963 as tools to educate the American public on the moral
74

Niven, p. 7.

47 necessity of civil rights reforms. These efforts resulted in the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, initiated by Kennedy and eventually signed into law by President Johnson the year after Kennedys assassination. He did not end segregation in public housing with a stroke of the presidential pen as he had promised during his presidential campaign, and he certainly did not always put the goals of the civil rights movement ahead of political considerations. However, informed by his own conscience, and with a little bit of prodding from activists such as Meredith, Kennedy would have a decidedly positive impact on the civil rights movement in the United States.

48 Primary Sources Burke Marshall Oral History Interview, June 14 1964, John F. Kennedy Library. Burke Marshall Oral History Interview, October 28 1968, JFKL. Burke Marshall Oral History Interview, January 19-20 1970, JFKL. Chronology, May 31 1961-September 24 1962, Chronologies, May 31 1961-October 19 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 19, JFKL. Deposition, Deposition of James Joseph P. McShane, University of Mississippi, Integration of: Depositions, Writs, and Petitions, February 1963-March 1968, Deposition of James J.P. McShane folder, James J.P. McShane Papers, box 2, JFKL. Executive Order, Providing Assistance for the Removal of Unlawful Obstructions of Justice in the State of Mississippi, Civil Rights Mississippi, September 27 1962September 30 1962 folder, Presidents Office Files, box 97, JFKL. Governor Ross Barnetts Proclamation to the People of Mississippi. June 2002. Integrating Ole Miss, John F. Kennedy Library and Museum. 4 March 2006. http://www.jfklibrary.org/meredith/contro_02fr.html. Lawsuit, James H. Meredith v Charles Dickson Fair et al., Ole Miss Integration: James Meredith, July 25, 1958-January 25, 1961 and undated folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. Memorandum, Burke Marshall to Robert Kennedy, October 3, 1962, Telephone Transcripts September 27, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. Memorandum, Harold Greene to Burke Marshall, September 27, 1962, Issues in Contempt Proceedings against Ross Barnett: Memorandum folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. Press Release, Statement by Governor Ross Barnett of Mississippi 11:00 p.m., CST, September 30, 1962, Telephone Transcripts: September 26-October 5, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. Showdown New York Times, September 30 1962. Proquest Historical Newspapers The New York Times (1851-2003) p E1. Telegram, John F. Kennedy to Ross Barnett, September 30, 1962, Civil Rights Mississippi, September 1962 folder, Robert F. Kennedy Papers, Attorney Generals General Correspondence, box 11, JFKL. Telephone Transcript, Memorandum of Conversations and Material Forwarded to Leon Jaworski by Air Mail on January 9, 1963, Telephone Transcripts, General and September 15-20, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. Telephone Transcript, Conversation between RFK and Governor Ross Barnett, Monday, September 24 1962, at 9:50p.m., Telephone Transcripts September 24-25, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. Telephone Transcript, Conversation between RFK and Governor Ross Barnett, Tuesday, September 25 1962, at 7:35p.m., Telephone Transcripts September 24-25, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. Telephone Transcript, Conversation Between RFK and Governor Barnett, Wednesday, September 27, 1962 at 2:50p.m., Telephone Transcripts September 27, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL.

49 Telephone Transcript, Conversation Between RFK and Governor Barnett, Wednesday, September 27, 1962 at 3:50p.m., Telephone Transcripts September 27, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. Telephone Transcript, Conversation Between RFK and Governor Barnett, Wednesday, September 27, 1962 at 4:20p.m., Telephone Transcripts September 27, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. Telephone Transcript, Conversation Between RFK and Governor Barnett, Wednesday, September 27, 1962 at 5:35p.m., Telephone Transcripts September 27, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. Telephone Transcript, Conversation Between RFK and Governor Barnett, Wednesday, September 27, 1962 at 6:35p.m., Telephone Transcripts September 27, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. Telephone Transcript, Conversation Between RFK and Governor Barnett, Friday, September 28, 1962 at 1:35p.m., Telephone Transcripts: September 28-October 5, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. Telephone Transcript, Conversation Between RFK and Governor Barnett, Friday, September 28, 1962 at 4:00p.m., Telephone Transcripts: September 28-October 5, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. Telephone Transcript, Telephone Conversation between Attorney General and Governor Barnett. Governor Barnett Called Sunday 12:45 p.m., September 30, 1962, Telephone Transcripts: September 28-October 5, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. Telephone Transcript, Telephone Conversation between President Kennedy and Governor Barnett. 3:16p.m., September 30, 1962, Telephone Transcripts: September 28-October 5, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL. Telephone Transcript, Telephone Conversation between President Kennedy and Governor Barnett. 8:14p.m., September 30, 1962, Telephone Transcripts: September 28-October 5, 1962 folder, Burke Marshall Papers, box 20, JFKL.

50 Secondary Sources Barrett, Russell H. Integration at Ole Miss. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965. Chronology. June 2002. Integrating Ole Miss, John F. Kennedy Library and Museum. 8 April 2006. http://www.jfklibrary.org/meredith/contro_02fr.html. Clarke, E. Culpepper. The Schoolhouse Door: Segregations Last Stand at the University of Alabama. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Doyle, William. An American Insurrection: The Battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962. New York: Doubleday, 2001. Freyer, Tony. The Little Rock Crisis: A Constitutional Interpretation. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984. Kluger, Richard. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black Americas Struggle for Equality. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. Lord, Walter. The Past That Would Not Die. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1965. Lau, Peter F. Ed. From the Grassroots to the Supreme Court: Brown v. Board of Education and American Democracy. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2004. Meredith, James. Three Years in Mississippi. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1966. Niven, David. The Politics of Injustice: The Kennedys, the Freedom Rides, and the Electoral Consequences of a Moral Compromise. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 2003. Ogletree, Charles J. All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half Century of Brown v. Board of Education. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2004. Olsen, Otto H. Ed. The Thin Disguise: Turning Point in Negro History- Plessy V. Ferguson: A Documentary Presentation (1864-1896). New York: Humanities Press, 1967. Schlesinger, Jr., Arthur M. A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965. United States Commission on Civil Rights. School Desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas. June 1977.