Evening star., 1962-09-21

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says he is not q "well-adjusted
Negro"
Il don't want to ever think
Pm well-adjusted as Negro,
he adds.
Mr.. Meredith's adjustment"
was a subject Of judicial in
terest Just before the United
NJ. cIsshorn Is on the StsFf Of the
Atlonto Journel.
States Fifth Circuit Court Of
Appeals, on his 29th birthday,
ordered his admission to Ole
Miss.
The State, seeking to show
that Mr.. Meredith is a trouble
maker" introduced an Air
Force psychiatrist's report that
said he ''is extremely concerned
with the racial problem and
his symptoms are intensified
whenever there is q heightened
tempo in the racial problems
IN the United States and
Africa"
Judge John Minor Wisdom
said in his caustic decision:
1T is certainly understand
able that a sensitive Negro,
especially one overseas. might
have Q nervous stomach over
the racial problem. There must
be q good many Negroes State
side with similar abdominal
reactions"
Good Conduct Medal
The psychiatric report said
there was no evidence of a
thinking disorder, the Judge
noted, and Mr.. Meredith re-
eeived the Good Conduct
Medal.
In fact. the Judge added, the
young veteran seemed lust
about the type of Negro who
might be expected to try to
crack the racial barrier at the
University: A man with a mis-
sion and with a nervous
stomach"
The last time a Negro tried
to register at Ole Miss, in 1858,
State officials hustled him off
and had him committed to a
mental institution. But q State
fudge forthwith declared the
man, former teacher Clennon
King, sane. He left Mississippi
Immediately.
Mr.. Meredith, a 135-pound,
wiry man with intense eyes and
Q small moustache, maintains
ne has mo fight with either
. integration or segregation" and
, just wants to go to a good
: school. but he admits that he
has been thinking of this par
: ticular school for II years.
He was growing up on an S4-
acre farm owned by his parents
. In the Mississippi hill country
Attala County. when the idea
first came, he recalls.
Begins to Think
II went to 9 white doctors
office when I was about IL and
he had q picture of himself In
football uniform on the wall, I"
he said. He had been a star
at the university" He began
TO think about going to Ole
Miss.
His parents, Moses c'Cap"O
and Roxie Meredith, were more
interested in his finishing high
school. Cap" Meredith, now II
and retired from farm life.
likes to talk about the fact that
his 10 children have all fin
tshed high school and. If James
Howard makes it, three will
have won college degrees.
The Meredith children suf-
fered relatively few pains be-
cause Of discrimination. Their
father always voted with no
difficulty, and his independ-
ence as a farmer gave him and
his family little contact with
the rest Of the community.
I've never been called mig
ger in Mississippi to this day
to my face" Mr.. Meredith said.
my first contact with the kind
of discrimination that really
hurts was after I visited De-
troit when / was Is.
Made to Move
Il caught the train back by
myself and when we got to
Memphis, they made me trans
fer to a Negro car. Some of
the white people told me not
: to move to the crowded Negro
car. but the conductor made
me go and stand on the out
side platform of the car"
Il cried all the rest of the
way home"
Since then he has seen more
of the country and the world.
He has concluded that only in
Japan, of the places he has
visited, has he escaped being
first a Negro.
II never felt as free as in
Japan" he said. recalling his
three years there while an Air
Force staff sergeant and clerk
typist. You were first and
foremost an American"
In Japan he read about the
Clennon King case. and he
continued to think about Ole
Miss.
After six years of Air Force
life, he became a civilian again
in 1860. Not long afterward he
enrolled at Jackson State Col
lege, a Negro school in Jack
son, Miss, the State capital,
where he has had a middle-B B
average.
Slows His Progress
He could have graduated be-
fnVA