James Meredith Quotes
I had developed a specifically calculated plan to break the system of white supremacy. My theory was that since Mississippi was the place, this was the ultimate: Mississippi was the place you had to break it.
Meredith, James. Three Years in Mississippi. Indiana University Press, 1966.
Historically, the Southern reaction to early 20th centry Civil Rights efforts was that it was the work of communist and anarchist radicals who were trying to destabilize America. When that argument began to be exposed as false, the next line of defense was that the southern Negro was perfectly happy in the segregated South, and the only problem was Northern liberals, black and white, who came to the South to foment trouble.
Freedom Rides were interracial groups of Civil Rights advocates who boarded public interstate busses in Washington and rode South through some of the most segregated communities in the country. As the bus stopped at the segregated rest stops, the Black Freedom Riders would use the “white” waiting rooms, toilets, and other facilities which was against the local custom and law. Racist segregationists often brutalized and assaulted the Freedom riders whose leaders demanded Federal Protection. The Attorney General and others were trying to get the local politicians and law enforcement officials to protect the Freedom Riders, but often these were the worst of the racist segregationists. Kennedy thought if he could have a “cooling off period” for a few days, he could persuade the locals to protect the Freedom Riders from the mobs with the threat of sending Federal Marshalls or troops for the protection. So he asked Farmer and other Freedom Ride organizers to stop the Freedom Rides for a few days. This was Farmer’s famous response. The Freedom Rides continued and forced the Federal Government to respond on a timetable they did not prefer.
Vladimir Lenin. In their quest for world revolution, the Russian Communists had more problems with arguments in the United States whose reforms and economy had produced a very high standard of living. They knew that to effect a revolution, they had to reach the middle class and the intellectuals. They had little economically to attack America with but they were able to attack the United States morally. Even though segregation was legal in America at that time, many Americans thought it immoral. Most of the rest of the world did also. So that was one of the attack points. Since the communists opposed U. S. racial segregation, many Southern segregationists used a perverted logic and accused everyone who opposed segregation of being a communist. In addition to racial segregation, the Communists attacked other forms of discrimination such as anti-Catholic, anti-Asian, and anti-Semitic (See {638737} ) behavior.
James Howard Meredith was the first African-American student admitted to the racially segregated University of Mississippi. He is also is an American civil rights movement figure, writer, political adviser, and Air Force veteran. It was in 1962 that Meredith became the first African-American student admitted to the theretofore segregated University of Mississippi, after the intervention of the federal government, an event that was a flashpoint in the civil rights movement. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, Meredith decided to exercise his constitutional rights and apply to the University of Mississippi. His goal was to put pressure on the Kennedy administration to enforce civil rights for African Americans.
