Hero James Meredith

An important though reluctant hero is James Meredith, who in 1962 became the first black student enrolled at the University of Mississippi.

Meredith came from a small town in Mississippi and was part Choctaw. Having spent nine years in the Air Force, he returned to his home state and two years later attempted to gain acceptance in that state's flagship university.

Meredith was physically prevented from doing so, inasmuch as the state's authorities chose to ignore a Supreme Court ruling. Federal marshals and National Guard troops were sent in, and a large-scale riot took place, leaving two people dead and 78 officers and troops injured. The integration of that university was successful, however, and Meredith graduated in 1963. Five years thereafter, he received his law degree at Columbia University.

Having already risked his life to attend college in the Deep South, he led a 1966 protest march from Memphis, TN, to Jackson, MS, and was shot, although he was patched up and completed the march.

After all this, it is ironic that Meredith became increasingly conservative and even worked on the staff of North Carolina's Senator Jesse Helms, a man not known for his liberal views on race. Even so, Meredith is regarded as a vrey brave man and one of the early heroes in the civil rights movement in America.