MY MISSISSIPPI
Meredith, James H.
my MLMtMippL by JAMES H. MEREDITH These are a jew brief excerpts from Three Years in Mississippi, James Meredith's own account of his experiences as the first Negro to enter the University of...
...There is no way for one Negro to change his basic status without first changing that of all Negroes...
...Since then I have felt a personal responsibility to change the status of my group...
...I know that I would starve to death rather than do either...
...Winter is my favorite season for looking at the land...
...It also must be remembered that I served as a soldier and not as a Negro soldier, although I was always aware of my personal heritage...
...Then, there is the feeling of love...
...The change must be sudden and abrupt...
...For the record, I believe that the term clearly identifies a particular and exclusive group of people and is in no way derogatory...
...I feel love because I have always felt that Mississippi belonged to me and one must love what is his...
...I had spent every year of my adult life and the three years before my twenty-first birthday in the Armed Forces...
...About two hundred yards up the next hill in the southeast corner of our eighty-four-acre farm is located the old house葉he place where I was born...
...The effect of the heat shows everywhere...
...For many it is a joke...
...Nature begins to fade away...
...Ever since I was fifteen years old I have been self-consciously aware that I am a Negro...
...The grass dries up and draws closer to the earth...
...At the same time, there is a feeling of sadness...
...A great feeling of urgency is generated by such abundance...
...As a boy I knew that any running stream of water was fit to drink...
...Shortly after passing the sign, I have often stopped by the side of the road and just looked at the land...
...Whether or not the Negro would become actually and effectively free and equal was not so certain, and it was for this I was prepared to fight...
...Since the crops are nearly all laid by, the whole state takes on a relaxed and idle atmosphere...
...Everything, except for the cedar trees and a few other evergreens, is bare...
...What Senator Bilbo of Mississippi predicted for labor unions will happen to the Negro...
...Just as the Negro suffers, he may be exalted...
...Love of the land...
...You can see for miles...
...Mississippi will not, Mississippi cannot, change gradually...
...One must always remember that I returned to my home state to fight a war...
...Everything that I have done, I did because I had to...
...Here I learned that death was to be preferred to indignity...
...The most dominant thought was, "If only I had my fair share in the running and managing of the state of Mississippi, what a wonderful land this could be...
...The fall of the year is perhaps the most colorful...
...Blackberries begin to ripen...
...I was taught to believe that the most dishonorable thing that a Meredith could do was to work in a white woman's kitchen and take care of a white man's child...
...Joy because I have once again lived to enter the land of my fathers, the land of my birth, the only land in which I feel at home...
...You feel that time is squeezing you and harvest you must...
...I was sure that it would become a reality...
...muscadine vines begin to hang from the burden of a good crop, and a black snake is likely to cross the road at any moment...
...In the summer there is maturity...
...Always, without fail, regardless of the number of times I enter Mississippi it creates within me feelings that are felt at no other time...
...I have long recognized the folly of advocating a change simply because it is right, because it is humane, because it is Christian, because it is in the Constitution, or for any other non-practical reason...
...A feeling of repose overcomes you...
...for others it recalls the days gone by, their work in the cotton fields in Mississippi, their migration to the North, their jobs in the warplants during the Forties and in the factories of today...
...Meredith's book, published recently by Indiana University Press, includes much of his philosophy and a wealth of observations on life in Mississippi...
...The Mississippi white will accept a new situation, but he cannot accept a process of change...
...my MLMtMippL by JAMES H. MEREDITH These are a jew brief excerpts from Three Years in Mississippi, James Meredith's own account of his experiences as the first Negro to enter the University of Mississippi...
...In Mississippi the change must happen because of the action of a unified Negro movement or it will not happen at all...
...I think of this machinery as something like a computer, into which one programs all the different data, and the result is the best possible answer that the available facts are capable of producing...
...What most Negroes and their organizations were fighting for葉he principle of equality, the idea that "I am not inferior to you" 謡as to me a foregone conclusion...
...When the time is right, the Negro will go to bed one night weak and will wake up the next morning strong...
...Finally, the "Welcome to Mississippi" sign reminds me of winter in my home state...
...This farm was called "my own place" by some of the descendants of the scattered children of African origin mixed with European and American Indian blood, identified by the ethnic name of Negro, incorporating within its meaning a past condition of slavery, and by the acquired name of "Meredith...
...In his house I learned the true meaning of life...
...It is reported that he told a labor representative, "If you show me where you can produce votes, I'll be the damnedest champion of labor you've ever seen...
...Just as he is disdained, he can have unassailable dignity...
...I come from the hill section of Mississippi...
...Anytime someone came down this road, you knew he was coming to Cap Meredith's house...
...How my divine responsibility was to be carried out was left to me...
...It also inspires a feeling of hope because where there is life there is also a hope, a chance...
...in other words, I grew up in the military...
...Summer is also the most suitable season for a lynching...
...In the spring, all is green and fresh, the air is clean and sweet, and everything is healthy...
...A soldier must at all times be ready, without hesitation or question, to die for his country and his cause...
...first thing that you see when you head south on old U.S...
...There is the feeling of joy...
...Obviously I was returning to Mississippi to work at the task of fulfilling my mission...
...Sadness because I am immediately aware of the special subhuman role that I must play, because I am a Negro, or die...
...This sign arouses mixed emotions in the thousands of Negroes who pass it...
...The greatest hope for a major change in the basic status of the Negro is to convince the American whites that it is in their best interests...
...I believe that within twenty years Mississippi will be the Negro show place...
...By now a definite procedure and method had been worked out...
...A decisionmaking and action-creating machinery had been devised, and it was only with the machinery that I had to concern myself...
...That the Negro American was to become legally and officially free and equal was no longer a question in my mind...
...For nearly a half mile the last stretch of the road runs up a long hill...
...Sadness because it is the home of the greatest number of Negroes outside of Africa, yet my people suffer from want of everything in a rich land of plenty, and, most of all, they must endure the inconvenience of indignity...
...All remaining fruits and nuts come to full maturity...
...To me, Mississippi is the most beautiful country in the world, during all seasons...
...You have the urge to pull alongside the road and take a cowpath up into the bushes and lie down under a big tree...
...During all those years I was conscious of my purpose in being a soldier葉o secure my country and its principles against any enemy...
...I am aware of another important fact: if I were a white man, I would not give up my favored position unless there was an extremely good reason...
...And I always ended the meditation with an assurance to myself, from myself, that I would have that share in my land or die trying to get it...
...My father was the first member of his family ever to own a piece of land...
...It is my firm conviction that the solution must result in the material improvement of both groups concerned葉he oppressors as well as the oppressed...
...The very existence of the human being makes everything possible...
...I believe in the human element...
...The Editors...
...Of course, I had known that I belonged to a group that was distinctly different from at least one other group, but until I was fifteen I did not know that my group was supposed to be the inferior one...
...I am a Negro, and I am directly affected by all that is inherent in the word...
...51 from Memphis and Shelby County, Tennessee葉he home of the Cotton Queens and the famous, or infamous, "Crump political machine" and the place where the Negro blues originated擁s a big flashy sign: Welcome to Mississippi...
...Trees and bushes start to color and a slow deterioration asserts itself...
...When I left Mississippi in 1950 I had never seen the inside of a white person's house, chiefly because a Negro had to enter by the back door...
...I am sure that the Negroes with the greatest sense of pride come from the farms, because working in the fields never carried the disgraceful connotations that working in the white folks' kitchens did...
...The grass begins to level off and seed...
...For me, it is indeed a sign of frustration...
...The most important thing that one must remember is the word "Negro...
...A very long time ago some force greater than myself placed before me my life's role, the mission that I was to accomplish...
...This is the end of the road...
Vol. 30 • August 1966 • No. 8
