Speaker urges students to speak properly
by Paul D. Matson, reporter

    Blacks will never get very far in this country if they do not learn to speak, read and write proper English, a civil rights activist told TCC audiences last week.

    James Meredith, who was the first black student to enroll in the University of Mississippi, spoke on all four campuses.

    “Black English is not English at all, and it has nothing to do with Africa. Black English cannot be written down. Black English is not meant to be clear,” Meredith said.

    President John F. Kennedy ordered 30,000 troops from the elite 101st Airborne Division to occupy the town of Oxford, Miss., as well as the University of Mississippi to ensure Meredith’s safety.

    “Every day the federal troops were with me,” he said.

Meredith was not a civil rights fighter.

    “My struggle was for full first-class citizenship for every American,” he said.

    “America is about citizenship, and every citizen should enjoy full rights and privileges. To me it was all or nothing. If there were 10 rights and I only had nine, it was the same as having none,” he said.

    Civil rights evolved, Meredith said, and blacks gained certain rights, such as the right to voting and use of public facilities without restrictions.

    In 1962 Meredith was the first black to serve in a desegregated Air Force base in Topeka and was assigned to work on the flight line but never received flight line pay.

    He also was assigned to room with a white airman. On the first day that man moved out, as did every other man on the second floor.

    “Being as selfish as I am, I enjoyed having the whole floor to myself,” he said.

    After reaching the rank of sergeant, Meredith was approached by one of the white men in his group.

    “You know sergeant, you’re okay with me, but I just can’t work with no nigger,” the airman said.

    The man’s feelings about blacks were so strong, Meredith said, that he took a dishonorable discharge rather than remain in an integrated Air Force. This feeling was prevalent in much of the country at that time.

    While in the Air Force, Meredith staged his first protest. Believing he wasn’t being treated fairly, he stayed in his bunk for two weeks.
Instead of a court martial. he was reassigned to Japan.

    “There wasn’t a soldier in the military, especially a black soldier, who didn’t want to go to Japan and get one of those Japanese women,” he said.

    In Japan Meredith found racism was even more rampant. Blacks were not allowed in restaurants and bars because the Japanese owners feared losing the white business.

    While still in the military, Meredith formulated a plan to stop white supremacy. He decided that total domination was the only method that would work. He thought that if he could just get a toehold, the whole thing would start to fall apart.

    In January 1961, the day John F. Kennedy was sworn in as president, Meredith sent a letter to the University of Mississippi asking for a student application. He received the application, which included space for a picture.

    He filled out the form, sending it in with his picture.

    He received a response saying the college had stopped accepting applications the day before his had arrived.

    In his second letter to Ole Miss, he asked, “Am I not a citizen? If I am, aren’t I entitled to go to this school? If I’m not a citizen, then I’m not entitled.”

    It took President Kennedy’s sending federal troops to Mississippi to ensure his acceptance.

    Meredith said the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which ensured full first-class citizenship, was the most important act passed because it covered the handicapped and women, especially white women, but it did more to help blacks. It gave full protection to all people under federal authority.

    The author of 25 books, Meredith spends much of his time championing the cause for more and better education for blacks.