A Picture Says A Thousand Words Assignment

Evan Ash & Tyler Baker

EDL 629 – Dr. Kate Rousmaniere

9/12/18

James Meredith at Ole Miss, October 1, 1962

The story of James Meredith, told from this press photo of his first day of classes, is one of a

response to intolerance; yet at the same time a portrait of crushing racism and prejudice on a

Southern college campus at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The image depicts James

Meredith, the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi, attending class flanked

by Chief U.S. Marshal James McShane and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, John

Doar. Tyler and I do not believe that the image is necessarily making a certain argument, as it

was a press photo. The question of argument is perhaps more suited to images like the Norman

Rockwell painting, which was deliberate in its portrayal of racism towards black children.

The image of Meredith entering the University of Mississippi is relevant to current

educators for several reasons. First, the issue of access to higher education for African

Americans has not been resolved. Access to higher education is a tiered system built on the

facade on equality. While it is true all people can, in theory, be admitted to an institution of

higher learning, systemic factors like tuition, quality of K-12 education, and generational wealth

or socio-economic status still play an outsized role in what college African Americans can

actually attend. Educators must be aware of the systemic inequities built into the United States’

model of education and actively seek to remove barriers of injustice.

Second, many colleges and universities still struggle with fostering an inclusive,

multicultural campus climate for African Americans. Meredith’s admission to the University of

Mississippi did not magically end his struggles with racism in Oxford, Mississippi and did little
to change Ole Miss’ stance towards integration.1 Nor did his admission mean campuses across

the nation would somehow expunge their hostility to integration. The riots surrounding

Meredith’s arrival on campus may be more historically exciting than the narrative of his sixteen

months at Ole Miss, but it is foolish to believe Meredith’s struggles ended when he went to his

first class -- because they surely didn’t.2 Educators must work to provide a culturally relevant

curriculum to students. Understanding that campuses and K-12 schools should be a microcosm

of the United States’ pluralistic society is key creating an educational climate where all people

see their identities reflected in both academic and student life.

As far as our reactions were concerned, Tyler focused on the somber faces in the photo.

Clearly, he reasoned, something had either taken place before the photo’s capture that brought

down everyone’s spirits, and especially that it took a heavy federal presence to simply allow

Meredith to enroll in school and attend his classes unmolested. In a brief way, Evan reasoned

that this was the historical context of the image. One of a confrontation in the deeply racialized

atmosphere of Southern segregation and the beginnings of its dismantling. We both were careful

to plot the chronology behind the photo, specifically after the riots and Ross Barnett’s “I love

Mississippi” speech, where he subtly signaled his plans to push back against the federal

government’s integrationist policies.

Evan also noted a continuity with other photos of black students wherein we see white

students, presumably hurling epithets at the black students despite the presence of federal

marshals. The two of us did not want to speculate about Meredith to a great amount, but noted

that he looked resolute, but just short of shaken. From the start, we reached many of the same

1
Nadine Chodas, "James Meredith and the Integration of Ole Miss," The Journal of Blacks in
Higher Education, no. 16 (1997): 112-22.
2
Charles, W. Eagles, The Price of Defiance: James Meredith and the Integration of Ole Miss,
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 447.
conclusions quickly, that the photo did not have a visible argument as a press photo, but that it

spoke volumes about the institution of segregation in Southern schools, inaccessibility to

education for blacks, and a region’s resistance to move in a civilized direction.