October 12 '02
Volume 332
Fall of '62 Dark
Hour Revisited
Depending on one's
perspective, Mississippi's darkest hour has many faces. Some point
to the political climate and civil right upheaval of the early sixties as
our state's darkest hour. Others would note the staggering total of Confederate
soldiers from Mississippi who died during the Civil War (twenty-five percent
of the male population of men of fighting age) and of the havoc wreaked by
Northern aggression as Mississippi's darkest hour. My Sister, in The
Lamentations of Sarah, cites the loss of all the University Grays, a
regimental unit comprised of students from the University of Mississippi
who were killed or mortally wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg, as Mississippi's
darkest hour. I'm sure there are other hours of note, as well.
In my first year at Ole Miss, upon graduating from Northwest Mississippi
Junior College of Senatobia, MS, James Meredith broke the racial barrier
and became the first black to officially attend the University of Mississippi.
It all happened in the fall of 1962.
There are plenty of folks who remember the events of that hour far better
than I do. I've read their recollections in the Northeast Mississippi
Daily Journal as well as the New York Times, the latter being
recently passed on to me by Lamar Carter. Surely, the riot that took place
September 30, 1962, on the campus at Ole Miss was a dark hour. Whether or
not it was Mississippi's darkest hour or not, I leave in the hands of historians
to decide, perhaps a hundred years hence.
My junior year at Ole Miss had begun weeks earlier, while the enrollment
of James Meredith had been delayed by court challenges. My remembrances of
the political turmoil are sketchy. The night of the riot, I was in Pontotoc,
since I did not routinely stay on campus over a weekend. Living only thirty
miles away from Ole Miss, I normally caught a ride home each weekend and
then caught a ride back to school on Monday morning. Had I been on campus
the night of the riot, I might well have been involved in the melee or, if
not, at least curious enough to view it from a distance.
I had majored in Chemistry at Northwest and was continuing the same at Ole
Miss. I quickly discovered a vast difference in the two academies of higher
learning. Good grades came harder at Ole Miss, classes were larger, and
professors seemed to have less regard for their students. Had I been thrust
into a similar environment right out of high school, I might never have graduated
from college. For me, Junior College was good in that it eased my transition
from high school to the University.
My second year in college found me head over heels in love with a young woman
from Eupora, MS, but our relationship did not survive the summer, and the
Ole Miss guy, her Eupora sweetheart, whom I had won her from in the springtime,
won her back in the summer. That the three of us shared a chemistry class
in the fall of '62 did not help my concentration on my studies. As dark as
the hour of my personal situation was, it would soon be eclipsed by a darker
hour, the riot and then the occupation of our campus by Federal Marshals
and the National Guard.
Returning to campus on Monday (may have been Tuesday) following my weekend
in Pontotoc, residual tear gas prevented classes being held in the Chemistry
building and several other buildings near the Lyceum and "the grove." For
what seemed like weeks, armed guardsmen searched cars entering both Oxford
and the Ole Miss campus. Students living near the dorm that housed James
Meredith were subject to being searched as they made their way to their living
quarters. Needless to say, the educational climate was at a new low.
A number of peaceful, albeit vocal, student-led rallies were held during
the several weeks that followed the riot. The National news was filled with
stories about Ole Miss, none of which were flattering. It was during this
period that regionally biased reporting by Newsweek and Time
magazines caused me to loose my respect for their accuracy. I witnessed some
of the events they inaccurately reported. The bias of the "Yankee Press"
was obvious.
I don't recall how many guardsmen were bivouacked a few miles off campus
or how many patrolled the campus, but they numbered in the tens of thousands.
On more than one occasion, I saw "cherry bombs" (powerful firecrackers),
explode within inches of patrolling soldiers.
A favorite tactic of militant students was to use slingshots to launch cherry
bombs from the back of a building to the front where guardsmen were either
in the street or on the sidewalk. Such incidents usually resulted in room
searches and the occasional apprehension of suspects. A few students were
expelled from school, but not every guilty individual was caught.
Most guardsmen managed to restrain themselves when heckled by students, but
one soldier fired into a dormitory window of the second story residence after
being verbally insulted or pelted by fireworks from a student. Given the
stresses of their soldiering, it's a small wonder more such incidents did
not occur.
Forty years have helped me see the error of my ways and has eased most of
my prejudices, but they have not erased the memories of my feelings and
attitudes. A hundred years after the Civil War, I found myself siding with
the rebels of a different war, a war that centered on civil rights. In a
sense, the North was again seeking to force their will upon the South. In
1962, the Federal Government willed racial integration upon public universities
of the South. Integration was not something we chose for ourselves, and to
this day, I detest being forced to do anything. I guess it’s a part
of the rebel in me.
John F. Kennedy was not popular with most Mississippians. First and foremost,
he was a Yankee, and worse he was a Catholic. Many felt he held a greater
allegiance to Rome than to his own country. His decision to use Federal Marshals
to effect the enrollment of a Negro at Ole Miss did not endear him to most
of us, and many of us shed no tears when he was assassinated the following
year.
Discussing this subject with my wife, recently, prompted her to ask, "Do
you think we'd have ever integrated our schools if we had not been forced?"
It's a thought that begs an answer, but the answer is purely speculative.
Yes, I do think racial integration in public schools would have occurred
by now, and I would speculate it might have happened non-violently, had we
been given the opportunity to decide it for ourselves.
Oddly, the hand of racial justice and equality, a hand that struck the South
mightily in the sixties was hardly felt in the North, even though similar
racial inequalities existed. Years would pass before integration would be
accomplished there. By then, Southerners were well on their way with the
healing process. With respect to everything a government can do to insure
racial equality, short of dismantling the Constitution, racial equality exists
in the South. From voting rights and federal poll watchers to integrated
schools, the South maintains compliance.
These days it's tough for Black leaders to find a cause to promote. About
the best they can do is rail against Confederate statues on public land or
the flying of the Confederate flag or any flag that contains within it's
design a part of the Confederate flag.
Ole Miss is about the business of burying it's past or at least apologizing
for it. Recently, Ole Miss unveiled a civil rights memorial near the Lyceum.
Ole Miss is also looking for persons present the night of the riot, desiring
to record for posterity their respective remembrances of one of the University's
darkest hours.
Class of '62
Missed Opportunity
Either my life has grown too complex, or my mind is running out of storage
space. Otherwise, I’m at a loss to explain my forgetfulness of late.
I had a nagging feeling most of the day last Saturday that I had forgotten
something, something important. That feeling ran strongest shortly after
lunch as I headed to Young’s Car Wash/ Laundry to wash the Taurus and
visit the Youngs.
Hurricane Lili had blown through town early Friday morning, bringing a lot
of strong winds. There was rain of course, but much less than we’d received
from the recent tropical depression, Isidore. The winds continued to blow
after the rain, and by Saturday morning, the grass at Sarah’s was dry
enough to cut.
Some of the trees belonging to Sarah’s neighbors are dropping leaves
of their own accord. Lili, helped them decide to turn loose of even more
leaves as well as a number of small branches. After mowing, the combination
of grass clippings and partially mulched leaves left her yard looking somewhat
unkempt. I don’t have a bagger attachment for my riding lawn tractor,
but I do for my self-propelled Lawn-Boy. I wasn’t sure I wanted to bag
the clippings, so I returned to Dogwood Circle to cut my yard, thinking,
should the notion strike me, I would tidy up her place after lunch.
After lunching on leftovers from Friday night’s supper of chicken and
dressing, I motored down to the car wash for more work followed by a bit
of conversation and relaxation with the Youngs. Returning home, I decided
to vacuum Sarah’s yard with the Lawn-Boy.
More than twenty-four hours would pass before I remembered what it was I
had intended to do Saturday. I spotted Tony Austin cutting grass at his
mother’s house, as I drove over to visit Aunt Jo and later pickup a
few staples at the supermarket. With it being Sunday, I felt like stopping
and chastising Tony for working on the Lord’s Day. However, the fact
that I was about to buy food from a supermarket and help perpetuate the need
for employees to work on Sunday, I felt hypocritical for having had the thought.
Returning from the supermarket, I saw Tony, his sister Pat, and Miss Audie
his mom, all working around Tony’s old home place next door to his
mom’s house. It was then that I stopped to greet them, explaining that
it appeared, from the looks of things, they needed a break.
Early into our conversation, Tony remarked that he did not see me Saturday
afternoon at the reunion. Not until he mentioned "reunion" did I remember
where it was and what it was I had intended to do Saturday.
"I’ll be dang!" I exclaimed when I realized the opportunity I had missed
to see members of the graduating class of 1962 and to congratulate them on
their fortieth reunion.
Besides Tony, there were several members of the Class of ’62 whom I
vividly recall, and would have enjoyed accepting their invitation to visit
between two o’clock and four o’clock on Saturday afternoon. The
class had published an invitation in the local, weekly newspaper two weeks
earlier and had invited my class as well as those graduating in ’61,
’63 and I believe ’64 also.
Tony shared that he was surprised that roughly seventy-five percent of his
class still lived in Pontotoc or near Pontotoc. I explained the same was
true of my class, but I don’t remember the exact percentage. I read
recently that fifty percent of the adults in this country live within fifty
miles of where they were born. Other than being above average, I don’t
know what that says about the class of ’62, but Pontotoc is a great
place to live.
I like to think, should the opportunity to visit with the Class of ’62
be presented ten years hence, I shall make it a priority, but who can know
what the future may bring?
Lion and
Antelope Peace On Earth
The prophet Isaiah prophesied in the Old Testament of the Bible, that a day
would come when "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down
with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little
child shall lead them." (Isaiah 11:6 NIV) These days, about the only time
the predator lies with the prey is when the predator is in the latter stages
of consuming its prey as a meal. However, Reuters reports that in Kenya a
lioness has adopted a young oryx, a type of African antelope. This is the
fifth time wildlife observers have noted the unusual behavior of a single
lioness.
In addition to her doting, the lioness not only drives off all potential
predators, she has previously allowed the mothers of the calves to be nursed
by their young while harming neither mother nor calf. Unfortunately, a male
lion made a meal of one of her adoptees while she slept.
We may be closer to the day prophesied by Isaiah than we think. Applying
a parallel analogy, we have now seen the lion lie down with the antelope.
It’s too bad those of us even higher on the food chain can’t set
a higher standard, regarding the respect of those unlike us, than we sometimes
witness in the wild.
Therefore, let us look forward to the day, "They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the
Lord as the waters cover the sea." (Isaiah 11:9 NIV)
Bodock Beau Doctor
Turned Mechanic
The editor asked me to wish his granddaughter Merilese, born 10/13/1997,
a happy fifth birthday. Happy Birthday Merilese!
EXTRA CREDIT
A gynecologist had a burning desire to change careers and become a mechanic.
So he found out from the local Tech College what was involved, signed up
for evening classes, attended diligently, and learned all he could.
When the time for the practical exam approached,
the gynecologist prepared carefully for weeks, and completed the exam with
tremendous skill.
When the results came back, he was surprised to find that he had obtained
a mark of 150%.
Fearing an error, he called the instructor, saying "I don't want to appear
ungrateful for such an outstanding result, but I wondered if there had been
an error, which needed adjusting."
The instructor said, "During the exam, you took the engine apart perfectly,
which was worth 50% of the total mark.
You put the engine back together again perfectly, which is also worth 50%
of the mark.
I gave you an extra 50% because you did all of it through the muffler!"
Submitted by Dena Kimbrell
EVER WONDER
Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?
Why women can't put on mascara with their mouth closed?
Why don't you ever see the headline ! "Psychic Wins Lottery"?
Why is "abbreviated" such a long word?
Why is it that doctors call what they do "practice"?
Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made
with real lemons?
Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?
When dog food is new and improved tasting, who tests it?
Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?
You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don't
they make the whole plane out of that stuff?!
Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?
Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?
If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?
Submitted by Malcolm Lindsey
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