​After graduating from high school in 1951, Meredith joined the Air Force, serving nine years before returning to Mississippi and enrolled in Jackson State University.  Watch the video below to find out about the event that helped James Meredith make history.

Let's take a deeper look at what happened:

october 1, 1962

In Martin Luther King’s famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” he called James Meredith, the first African American to integrate the University of Mississippi in 1962, a hero of the civil rights movement.  In January 1961, the night following John F. Kennedy’s presidential inauguration, Meredith decided to submit his first application to the University of Mississippi (also known as Ole Miss), which was closed to African American students. His application was rejected twice, but with the help of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Meredith legally challenged the university’s segregation policy. After enduring extended court battles, the defiance of Mississippi’s Governor Ross Barnett, and violent campus riots, Meredith was finally admitted on 1 October 1962.
Listen to the NPR show to the RIGHT and then write 3 facts you learned in your Journal
​In 1966 Meredith began a “March Against Fear,” a solitary march from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, to encourage African American voter registration. When a sniper wounded him on the second day of the march, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee rallied behind his cause. King, Stokely Carmichael, and Floyd McKissick were joined by hundreds of others as they completed the march.

By the late 1960s Meredith had moved to New York and received a law degree from Columbia University. Over the next several years Meredith became more politically involved, making several unsuccessful bids for public office, including a run for the Republican nomination for senator from Mississippi. A local community leader in Mississippi, Meredith organized the Black Man’s March to the Library in Memphis to promote reading and writing of standard English, and the Black Man’s March for Education to the University of Mississippi.
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https://www.splcenter.org/news/2018/10/01/integrating-ole-miss-assault-white-supremacy-worldwide
What stood out to you about the story of James Meredith?  How did he contribute to the Civil Rights Movement?  What can we learn from him?  Add in any other reactions you may have after watching and viewing the above.

w h o   e l s e   m a d e   h i s t o r y ?















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Many individuals contributed to the work of the Civil Rights Movement, however - like many historical moments - only few get remembered.  How do we choose the historical characters we remember?  How do we choose what history we remember?
​Written article taken from:  https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/meredith-james-howard