President Kennedy’s Address to the Nation on the James Meredith Case

He was not allowed to attend a major southern university. He was constantly threatened and verbally abused. He was even accused of stealing.

James H. Meredith was black. On January 21, 1961, one day after President John F. Kennedy was inaugurated, Meredith applied for admission to the University of Mississippi. Having attended Jackson State University, the University of Maryland, Washburn University, and the University of Kansas with a record of excellent grades, Meredith felt confident of his decision to apply. However, academic achievement was not his primary reason for applying. The University of Mississippi did not admit blacks. James Meredith wanted to change that.

Meredith wrote a letter requesting information on admission to the registrar’s office at the university. He also wrote to the four other universities he had attended, asking that his transcripts be sent to the University of Mississippi. He followed all admission procedures very carefully. On February 21, he enclosed in a second letter a $10 deposit for a room in the men’s dormitory. Despite his efforts, the University of Mississippi rejected his application after Meredith informed them in his letter of February 21 that he was black.

The registrar at "Ole Miss," Robert B. Ellis, wrote Meredith that his application was received after the deadline for registration and was therefore not acceptable. Meredith’s room deposit was returned.

Meredith fought back. He again sent the $10 deposit to Ellis, on May 21, requesting that it be used for his stay during the next summer session. However, on May 25, Ellis wrote to inform Meredith that his undergraduate credits could not be transferred from Jackson State because that school was not a member of the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. Ellis added that the application did not meet other requirements, but he failed to say what they were. He also said that Meredith’s file had been closed. On May 31, 1961, Meredith responded by filing suit in the U.S. district court against the University of Mississippi, claiming that he had been denied admission because of his race.

The trial lasted a year. The credibility of the case rested solely on Meredith’s testimony. Beginning with the deposition, Meredith faced questions, many of which had nothing to do with his application for admission to the university. The questions were aimed at intimidating him and falsify-ing his story. They asked where his wife was from, who had married them, what type of car he had driven to the hearing, if he had credit cards or paid cash for everything.They even asked him to spell the words "notary public." For blacks in southern courtrooms at that time, questions such as these were known as "the treatment." Finally, the court ruled against Meredith, asserting that he had not met all the procedures required for admission, including obtaining letters of recommendation from alumni. Meredith had failed to satisfy the court that his admission to the University of Mississippi was denied on the grounds that he was black.

Click the image to view a larger version

Meredith appealed this decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. His case finally received full attention from the court, the State of Mississippi, and the United States public. On June 25, 1962, more than a year after he had initially applied to the university, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court handed down its decision. James Meredith was to be allowed to attend the University of Mississippi. The court stated in its decision that Mississippi schools practiced a segregationist policy and further explicitly recognized the difficulty for a black student to meet the requirement of obtaining letters of recommendation from alumni, since there were no black alumni of the university nor any white alumni likely to be willing to write them. The court also said that the requirement for such letters was adopted by the university only a few months after the historic Supreme Court decision in Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

Meredith’s legal victory was challenged. Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett proclaimed on September 13, 1962, that the State of Mississippi would not conform to the federal court decision. The state would defy the court order to admit James Meredith to the state university. Governor Barnett declared: "The operation of the public school system is one of the powers which was not delegated to the Federal Government but which was reserved to the respective states pursuant to the terms of the Tenth Amendment." He went on to say that the federal government had used the judicial system illegally to take away the reserved powers of the State of Mississippi. Governor Barnett declared that Mississippi was "no longer subject to the laws of the United States."

All three branches of the state government of Mississippi were determined to take as many actions as possible to obstruct execution of the federal court’s decision allowing a black to enroll in a white university. Meredith was tried, convicted, and sentenced to a year in jail on charges of false voter registration. A few days later, the Mississippi legislature held an emergency midnight session to pass a law stating that a person could not enroll in the university if he or she were involved in a criminal proceeding, or if he or she were convicted of a crime with a minimum sentence of a fine of $300 or a year in jail. The governor was appointed registrar of the university effective September 20, the day Meredith first arrived on campus.

The U.S. Government would not tolerate the defiance of the State of Mississippi. On September 30, 1962, the President of the United States issued an Executive Order stating that justice was not going to be obstructed by any person or state. President Kennedy knew that above all, a president has the responsibility to enforce the law and maintain order throughout the country. On October 1 the president communicated his order on the Meredith case in a radio and television address. In this speech, Kennedy reaffirmed the supremacy of the federal courts over the state courts in settling constitutional issues. Reproduced here are the first three pages of the president’s speech. The entire document is kept at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, a part of the National Archives located in Boston, Massachusetts.

James Meredith, in pursuing the constitutional procedure to enact change within our system, had effected a revival of a question as old as the Constitution itself: Are the State governments the ultimate authority in this country or is the federal government? John Kennedy responded in no uncertain terms, the Constitution is the supreme law of the land and the federalcourts are its final interpreters.

Teaching Activities

1. Divide the class into three groups. Give each group one of the questions listed below.

a. How does President Kennedy’s speech reveal his responsibilities as president?

b. What constitutional issues are addressed in his speech?

c. What persuasive techniques does Kennedy employ in this speech to the American people?

Allow time for the students to exchange their ideas and consult their textbooks for more ideas. Write all ideas on the board or on chart paper for the students to see. Conduct a classroom discussion summarizing the role of the president, the principles of law and order, the balance between federal and state power, and the techniques of an effective speech.

2. James Meredith said, "The very existence of the human being makes everything possible: Discuss with your class the meaning of this statement. Ask your students to list some examples of situations in which an individual human being cannot make a change. How could such situations be eliminated? What could individuals do to eliminate them? Explain why more people do not try to change social situations that they feel are unfair or unacceptable.

3. Ask students to play the role of James Meredith in 1962. Have them write a letter home to his parents describing his life on campus and the surrounding social climate.

4. Ask students to compare and contrast the University of Mississippi in the 1960s with the university today. Research the opportunities available to blacks and minorities on the campus today. Evaluate the impact that Meredith had on the opportunities presently available. Have students present their findings in an essay.

5. Suggest that each student find two other individuals in history who shared James Meredith’s belief that one person could enact change within a society and prepare a brief report to present informally to the rest of the class. Ask reporters to capsulize the attitudes and values of their two selected figures in two or three words. Write these words on the board. Direct students to make a composite of an individual of conscience based on the entire list of words.