Integration of the University of Mississippi (1962)

CTL-E-5423 · Event · other · 1962

VERIFIED evidence grade of this record

On September 30, 1962, as James Meredith (CTL-E-5385) arrived on the University of Mississippi campus at Oxford under escort, a segregationist mob rioted through the night against the federal marshals protecting him; two people were killed and hundreds injured before Army troops restored order. Meredith, an Air Force veteran, had applied to the all-white university in 1961 and sued for admission after its refusal; Mississippi's governor, Ross Barnett, personally blocked his registration attempts in defiance of federal court orders. President Kennedy federalized the Mississippi National Guard and sent marshals and regular troops to enforce the courts. On October 1, 1962, Meredith registered — the first Black student enrolled at the University of Mississippi — and he persisted through a year of ostracism and harassment to graduate in August 1963. The Ole Miss crisis was the gravest federal-state confrontation over desegregation since Little Rock, and it demonstrated, at the cost of two lives, that enrollment orders would be enforced at bayonet point when states made bayonets necessary.

The record

• Also known as: Ole Miss Integration, Ole Miss Crisis of 1962, Integration of Ole Miss

Notes

Statistics: Riot: September 30, 1962; enrollment: October 1, 1962 (University of Mississippi). The intake paste's stop #23 (September 1962) is VERIFIED — the crisis is conventionally dated to September; enrollment was completed October 1. Staged edge: James Meredith (CTL-E-5385) initiated this event. Meredith's graph record is Tier V (181 words). · Curator's Judgment: DRAFT — for founder review: One student's registration form required an army. The record states Meredith's own framing — he considered himself at war, and said so — and lets the deployment numbers argue the rest. Ole Miss is where the timeline stops being about requests. · Photo slot: CLEARED CANDIDATE — Wikimedia Commons File:James Meredith OleMiss.jpg, Public domain, license verified from Commons API metadata on 2026-10-15; not downloaded — visual pass follows merge per standing pattern.

Referenced by

• James Meredith — initiated → this record

Sources

• University of Mississippi, eGrove (James Meredith exhibit) — supports: the September 30, 1962 riot, Meredith's October 1, 1962 enrollment as the university's first Black student, and his August 18, 1963 graduation — https://egrove.olemiss.edu/exhibit/selected-student-works/the-neilsons-project/james-meredith/ (primary source)
• Wikipedia, 'James Meredith' — supports: Governor Barnett's defiance, the deployment of marshals and troops, and the riot's toll (two killed, more than 300 injured) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Meredith
• National Archives / JFK Library references — supports: Kennedy's federalization of the Mississippi National Guard and the court orders Meredith's suit produced

Record CTL-E-5423 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · evidence grade: VERIFIED · 3 sources (1 primary) · 1 mapped relationship · CTL research: BCI-001, RELP-001.
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