(born 1933). At the age of 29, James Meredith became a student at the University of Mississippi. He was the first African American to attend that university. The road to becoming a student there was not easy. After Meredith sued the university for rejecting him, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the university to accept him. When he tried to register for classes, however, local white people started a violent protest.

Early life

James Howard Meredith was born on June 25, 1933, in Kosciusko, Mississippi. He was part of a family that believed in the value of education. After high school Meredith joined the U.S. Air Force. He served in the Air Force between 1951 and 1960. When he got out of the Air Force he wanted to continue his education.

Education

Meredith first attended the all-black Jackson State College. In 1961 he applied to the University of Mississippi. At that time only white students were allowed to go to the university. The university rejected Meredith's application two times.

After the second time Meredith decided to fight back. It was clear to him that the only reason he had not been accepted was that he was black. He asked for help from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP filed a lawsuit for Meredith. The court ruled in favor of the university. Meredith appealed his case (brought it to a higher court). On September 10, 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Meredith had a right to go to the university.

Meredith then tried to sign up for classes at the university, but the governor of Mississippi and other officials stopped him. Angry mobs of whites tried to frighten Meredith away. After a riot broke out on September 30, President John F. Kennedy sent thousands of federal troops to Mississippi. Two people died in the riot, and 160 were injured—some by gunshots from the crowd.

Meredith successfully registered for classes on October 1. During the entire time he went to the University of Mississippi, he had federal guards to protect him. Meredith graduated in 1963. He then attended college in Nigeria and earned a law degree from Columbia University in New York City.

Career

After his education Meredith worked for civil rights. In June 1966 he began to walk by himself from Tennessee to Mississippi. He wanted to protest against racism. He called his walk the “March Against Fear.” One of his goals was to encourage African Americans to register to vote. During the walk a sniper shot Meredith. Other civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr., took his place in the march. When Meredith was released from the hospital he joined the others and finished his march. Thousands of African American voters registered to vote during the march.

Later in his life Meredith stopped working in the civil rights movement. He began to support the conservative Republican Party. In 1972 Meredith ran for Congress as a Republican but did not win. He later worked for the Republican senator Jesse Helms, which bothered many civil rights leaders. Helms opposed things that many civil rights leaders supported, including busing children to different schools to end segregation (the separation of blacks and whites).

Meredith also became an author. His first book, Three Years in Mississippi, was published in 1966. It tells his story of attending the University of Mississippi. In 1995 he published a historical work called Mississippi: A Volume of Eleven Books.