Previous pages: a football game in oxford between Mississippi and arkansas brings out the school’s cheerleading squad and famed ole Miss marching band. Left: James Meredith was the first african american to attend the University of Mississippi. a statue of him stands about 100 yards away from a statue of a Confederate soldier.
matter most to people who live here: Faulkner, friends and football.
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By midmorning Saturday, the Grove looks like a huge encampment with hundreds of white tents covering every inch of available space. People started grabbing the best locations at the stroke of midnight. The first to go are places along the Walk of Champions, the route team members take to the stadium. Football fans are pouring onto cam-
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an honored tradition. It’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” meets “Animal House,” part fashion show, part pep rally and part hangover in the making. Eastland leads us to a lively get-
together at a downtown law firm. The second-floor balcony is an ideal spot for watching all of the activity in the streets. In the reception area, I overhear a group of lawyers discussing how little North- erners know about Mississippi. “They think we’re all a bunch of rednecks,” says a perfectly coiffed blond attorney, sipping a glass of bourbon and water. I feel compelled to politely disagree. “Ac- tually, they’re right in some cases,” she laughs, cracking up everybody within hearing distance. Something tells me I’m not the first person to fall for that one. “A lot of people have ideas about Mis-
sissippi based on things that happened years ago,” Eastland says later. “All that stuff ’s in our rearview mirror.” As we get ready to call it a night, I no-
tice the statue in front of the courthouse. The Confederate soldier is standing at ease and looking South, a pose that might describe the way Oxford likes to see itself, laid-back and down-home, sociable but set in its ways, particularly when it comes to the three things that
pus from all directions. Some make a beeline for hometown tents serving such local delicacies as venison chili and pecan pie; others gather around portable smokers the size of road-re- pair equipment for helpings of tangy Mississippi barbecue. At one tent, the featured entertainment is an Elvis im- personator in a sequined jumpsuit. The King, I’m reminded, was from nearby Tupelo. People roam from tent to tent looking up old friends, and soon whole geographical contingents from the Gulf Coast, hill country and the Delta are re- connecting. The mood is so convivial, even visiting Alabama supporters are welcome. Eastland, who’s wearing his game-
day blue blazer and striped tie, takes a deep breath. “Ummm,” he says. “My favorite smell. Bourbon and Chanel No. 5.” One thing about the Grove that’s
immediately apparent is the number of impeccably attired female students; getting dressed up is the style here for football Saturdays. Mississippians have good reason to believe they lead the nation in the production of beauty queens. In a remarkable achievement in competitive good looks the state has produced four Miss Americas, three of whom attended Ole Miss. Two of those, Mary Ann Mobley and Linda Mead Shea, back-to-back winners in 1959 and ’60, were members of the same sorority, Chi Omega. Meredith and his wife, Judy, are
waiting for us at the Lyceum, the uni- versity administration building and scene of the most violent clashes dur- ing the 1962 riots. Bullet holes are still visible in the columns on the building’s portico. Dressed in a white suit and a
white straw hat, Meredith, 77, is hard to miss. This is his first visit to campus since the 2006 dedication of a statue that depicts him walking through an open door. It takes some coaxing to persuade him to walk past his likeness, which he finally agrees to do with his eyes closed, holding on to my elbow. “I don’t want to see that thing,” he says. The memorial suggests how far the uni- versity and the state have come since his college days, a time in his life, Mer- edith says, he doesn’t look back on with any nostalgia. “I didn’t come here to get an education. I came to destroy white supremacy.” During the year he spent in Oxford — he graduated in 1963 — federal marshals accompanied him virtually everywhere he went. Meredith, who lives in Jackson, had
served in the Air Force and later stud- ied at historically black Jackson State before applying to Ole Miss. “I sincerely hope that your attitude toward me as a potential member of your student body … will not change upon learning that I am not a white applicant,” he wrote in a letter to the admissions office. “I am an American-Mississippi-Negro citizen.” The effort to keep him from enrolling went on for almost a year. Today, Afri- can Americans make up 15 percent of the university’s student population. A white man in the crowd introduces
himself and shakes Meredith’s hand. “I just want to thank you for what you did,” he says. Meredith smiles as the two rem- inisce about campus life a half-century ago. Henry McCaslin, now a bank presi- dent in Cleveland, Miss., says he was an Ole Miss freshman in the fall Meredith arrived. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry for everything he went through.” On a one-man voting-rights march
from Memphis to Jackson in 1966, Mer- edith was shot and wounded by a sniper. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael, then-leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Com- mittee, took over the march, eventually joined by thousands in what would be the last big demonstration of its kind in Mis- sissippi. Meredith, who has a law degree from Columbia, distanced himself from the civil rights movement. “He never got along with the leaders,” says David Sansing, retired professor of history at
september 12, 2010 | The WashingTon PosT Magazine 33
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