A Dream That's Dying

Fifty years ago today, James Meredith made his way across the University of Mississippi campus through mobs of enraged whites threatening to burn him alive. His offense? Daring to enroll at the historically white institution. Although almost a decade had passed since the famous Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation, public universities across the deep south remained all white. Then-governor of Mississippi Ross Barnett was determined to keep the status quo, but he wasn't counting on Meredith, a 29-year-old black Air Force veteran, who was just as determined to seize his Constitutional rights and enroll at Ole Miss. He was repeatedly rejected until a court order forced the school to admit him. On October 1, 1962, Meredith entered the campus, accompanied by U.S. Marshals. Before that day was over, it would take hundreds of marshals and an entire Army Combat Battalion to repel the violent mob of segregationists who rioted to block his enrollment.

In his memoir, A Mission from God, Meredith recounts the thousands of death threats pouring in from across the country with gruesome details of how he was to die. About the day of his enrollment Meredith writes, "Rocks start flying in my direction, the screaming intensifies, and the crowd surges closer...." But Meredith enrolled at Ole Miss and despite daily harassment, he graduated in 1963 with a bachelor's degree in political science.

To read more, visit the Huffington Post.