Witness History: Witness Archive 2017 - The first black American at Ole Miss

Download The first black American at Ole Miss

There were riots when the first black student was enrolled at the University of Mississippi in the American south in October 1962. Mississippi's white segregationist governor only allowed James Meredith to be admitted after President John F Kennedy himself intervened. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to Norma Watkins, the daughter of the governor's lawyer, about that watershed moment and about growing up in one of America's most segregated states.

Picture: James Meredith walks to class at Ole Miss university accompanied by US marshals, October 1st 1962 (Credit: Marion S Trikosko courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington)

Published on Thursday, 5th October 2017.

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