The Integration of Ole Miss - HISTORY

Newsreel footage of President Kennedy's address to the American people after the University of Mississippi riots in 1962.

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When Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett refused to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling demanding desegregation at the University of Mississippi and the admittance of James Meredith, President John F. Kennedy was forced to intervene. In his address to the nation on September 30, 1962, Kennedy explains his decision to federalize the state national guard in order to maintain law and order while Meredith registers at the college.

Newsreel footage of former Alabama Governor George Wallace standing against desegregation while being confronted by federal authorities at the University of Alabama in 1963.

Led by civil rights pioneer Daisy Bates, these nine brave Arkansas teenagers broke through racial barriers to become the first black students to attend Little Rock High School.

On September 2, 1957, Governor Orval Faubus called out the Arkansas National Guard to prevent a group of African-American students, who later became known as the Little Rock Nine, from entering the all-white Central High School. In a broadcast that evening, Faubus defends his decision to call in the state's National Guard.

On June 23, 1964, two days after three civil rights workers disappeared in Mississippi, President Lyndon B. Johnson telephones Senator James Eastland for help with the matter, but Eastland denies trouble and declares the event a publicity stunt.

Historian Yohuru Williams sums up the tumultuous political and cultural movements of the 1960s.

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