Meredith, James (Howard)

(born June 25, 1933, Kosciusko, Miss., U.S.) U.S. civil rights leader. He grew up in poverty in Mississippi, the most racially segregated state in the U.S. In 1961 he applied for admission to the all-white University of Mississippi. He won a legal battle to be admitted, but federal troops and Justice Department officials had to be brought in to enforce the court order. While participating in a voter-registration drive after his graduation from “Ole Miss,” he was shot and wounded by a white supremacist.

Meredith, James (Howard) (1933– ) civil rights activist, business executive; born in Kosciusko, Miss. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, he became the first African-American to enroll in the University of Mississippi (1962), but only after he had weathered campus riots (which left two dead) and the resistance of state officials. Federal troops had to protect him on campus until he graduated (1963). He published his autobiographhical Three Years in Mississippi (1966) and not long after was shot while on the March Against Fear in Mississippi. He recovered and completed the march, but soon thereafter dropped out of the civil rights movement. He worked as a stockbroker, in real estate, and as an investor (1967) while attending Columbia University Law School (1968). He became president of Meredith Enterprises (1968), lectured on racial problems, and was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives (1972). Always a somewhat diffident loner, he never seemed interested in assuming the roles that were thrust upon him.