Kenneth Mayfield was in the Black Student Union at the University of Mississippi in 1970. Members of the group have been jailed after protesting token integration on the Ole Miss campus. Mayfield, now an legal professional in Tupelo, Miss., was additionally one of eight students expelled.
Timothy Ivy for NPR
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Kenneth Mayfield was in the Black Student Union at the University of Mississippi in 1970. Members of the group have been jailed after protesting token integration on the Ole Miss campus. Mayfield, now an legal professional in Tupelo, Miss., was additionally one of eight students expelled.
Timothy Ivy for NPR
OXFORD, Miss. — Many a Black historical past lesson contains the story of James Meredith, the man who integrated the University of Mississippi in 1962.
But that wasn’t the finish of efforts to dismantle entrenched segregation on the school campus most related with the Old South. Even the faculty’s moniker — Ole Miss — derives from the time period enslaved folks as soon as used for the mistress of the plantation.
By 1970, about 200 Black students had enrolled at the state’s flagship college. At the time, faculty delight meant waving a Confederate battle flag.
“The climate was like the desert,” says Linnie Liggins Willis, who began at Ole Miss in 1967. She describes a way of isolation for Black students.
“We would associate and cling to each other because we didn’t have the opportunity to really interact with the other students on campus,” Willis says. “We just kind of formed our own little community.”
Her classmate, Kenneth Mayfield says the message was clear that Black students have been thought of second-class residents. He remembers they’d be taunted when strolling by the athletic dorm.
“You were going to get harassed, you know, with the N-word, stuff like that,” he says.
Mayfield’s greatest buddy, Donald Cole, remembers sitting alone on his first day of chemistry class as a result of white students refused to take the seats close to him. He says he was often reminded of his place, as an example being compelled off the sidewalk on a wet day.
“There were some guys twice my size who blocked the sidewalk. I was supposed to walk around them in the mud,” Cole says.
A disheartening expertise for students who thought that they had a shot at an training right here after James Meredith had damaged the shade barrier eight years earlier than. Yet they encountered solely token integration. So they shaped a Black Student Union in protest.
Fighting for racial fairness in the post-integration period
“We wanted our voices to be heard,” says Willis, secretary of the group. “We wanted to feel that we were a part of the mainstream, and that as Blacks or African-Americans, we would we would have a certain amount of power that we could leverage for whatever we wanted to in the future.”
Emboldened by protests on campuses throughout the nation at the time, Cole says, the group got here up with 27 calls for for racial fairness, and introduced them to the chancellor on Feb. 24, 1970.
A typed listing of calls for the Black Student Union introduced to the chancellor of University of Mississippi in 1970. Emboldened by protests on different campuses throughout the nation, Black students noticed a chance to problem token integration at Ole Miss.
The Daily Mississippian, University of Mississippi
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The Daily Mississippian, University of Mississippi
A typed listing of calls for the Black Student Union introduced to the chancellor of University of Mississippi in 1970. Emboldened by protests on different campuses throughout the nation, Black students noticed a chance to problem token integration at Ole Miss.
The Daily Mississippian, University of Mississippi
“We were just asking, very very simply, to be treated normally,” Cole says. “We were just trying to better the institution.”
They wished the faculty to rent Black professors, recruit Black athletes, and do away with sanctioned racist imagery.
“Disassociation of the college with Confederate symbols — the flag at the time as a result of that was that was only one means of people consistently telling me that they did not need me right here,” says Cole.
“This was really about telling these Black students, ‘know your place; this is still a white man’s university,'” says Ralph Eubanks. He’s a writer-in-residence and Black Power college fellow at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi.
Black students burn a Confederate battle flag in protest at the University of Mississippi. In 1970, the Black Student Union demanded that Ole Miss disassociate with Confederate symbols. They mentioned waving the flag was a reminder that Ole Miss was nonetheless a “white man’s university,” eight years after James Meredith had built-in the school campus most related with the Old South.
The Daily Mississippian, University of Mississippi
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The Daily Mississippian, University of Mississippi
Black students burn a Confederate battle flag in protest at the University of Mississippi. In 1970, the Black Student Union demanded that Ole Miss disassociate with Confederate symbols. They mentioned waving the flag was a reminder that Ole Miss was nonetheless a “white man’s university,” eight years after James Meredith had built-in the school campus most related with the Old South.
The Daily Mississippian, University of Mississippi
Eubanks is working to ensure the current generation of students at Ole Miss learns about the decades-long struggle to fully integrate the campus.
“I’m talking to you in a building right now that was built by slaves. And I can’t escape that,” Eubanks says. “I want everyone to see the connections, the historical connections between all of these events and not really forget them.”
He says they’ve classes for as we speak, and the future.
“That has been the missing piece of the civil rights movement,” he says. “We as a nation never learned to work together down the road. And this university, with its civil rights history, never had that form of reconciliation.”
Author Ralph Eubanks is college fellow and writer-in-residence at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. He’s half of the Black Power at Ole Miss job pressure that is commemorating the 1970 protests.
Timothy Ivy for NPR
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Timothy Ivy for NPR
Author Ralph Eubanks is college fellow and writer-in-residence at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi. He’s half of the Black Power at Ole Miss job pressure that is commemorating the 1970 protests.
Timothy Ivy for NPR
At a current commemoration on campus, pre-law freshman Aminata Ba gave a dramatic recitation of the Black Student Union’s calls for from 1970, telling the viewers that the protest “was in resistance to the remnants of slavery in Mississippi and the consequential rampant racial abuse of Black students on campus.”
Ba considers herself a legacy of what these students demanded 54 years in the past.
“You can’t help but just compare their experiences then to your experience now as a Black student at the University of Mississippi.” Ba says she needs to construct on what they achieved.
“Addressing the difficult history and not whitewashing it, but instead saying, this is what we did and this is what we’re gonna do, and this is how we’re moving forward,” says Ba.
Arrested and expelled for asserting Black Power
A key occasion in the battle of 1970 was when the Black Student Union disrupted a live performance on campus. Linnie Willis says students have been shocked the college was selling the present by Up With People, a mixed-race worldwide singing group.
“How hypocritical, that they are so willing to embrace this interracial group coming here, but yet they did not embrace us,” she says.
“We just walked right across in front of the performing group and stood there and, we raised our fists with the Black power symbol.”
Dr. Donald Cole, proper, describes having a gun pointed at him when Black protesters have been arrested in 1970 after storming the stage throughout a live performance by the group “Up With People” on the Ole Miss campus. Cole, and his greatest buddy, Kenneth Mayfield, left, have been expelled from the college alongside with six others. The two are again on campus to inform present Ole Miss students what occurred again then.
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Dr. Donald Cole, proper, describes having a gun pointed at him when Black protesters have been arrested in 1970 after storming the stage throughout a live performance by the group “Up With People” on the Ole Miss campus. Cole, and his greatest buddy, Kenneth Mayfield, left, have been expelled from the college alongside with six others. The two are again on campus to inform present Ole Miss students what occurred again then.
Timothy Ivy for NPR
Kenneth Mayfield grabbed a microphone from one of the singers to spell out their calls for. “A few minutes later, the word came up to those of us who were on the stage that the highway patrol had surrounded the building,” Mayfield remembers.
For the first time since that night time 54 years in the past, Mayfield and Cole are launched to 2 members of Up With People who traveled to Oxford for the commemoration.
“I am just so glad that we are to be here tonight and laugh about it,” displays Donald Cole, standing exterior the venue the place all of it occurred – Fulton Chapel. “It could have easily been a very violent night here.”
Bruce Parker and Ric Newman, each white males, have been half of the solid. The protest made an enduring impression on them.
“We stopped the tune we have been singing, and we instantly went into [the song] What Color Is God’s Skin,” Parker recollects. “I think it really spoke to the protesters……I just felt like there was something going on here.”
The campus newspaper, The Daily Mississippian, coated a protest by Black students who disrupted a live performance at the University of Mississippi’s Fulton Chapel in 1970. The protesters have been demanding racial equality on campus. Eighty-nine Black students have been arrested, and eight of them expelled.
The Daily Mississippian
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The Daily Mississippian
The campus newspaper, The Daily Mississippian, coated a protest by Black students who disrupted a live performance at the University of Mississippi’s Fulton Chapel in 1970. The protesters have been demanding racial equality on campus. Eighty-nine Black students have been arrested, and eight of them expelled.
The Daily Mississippian
“We wanted them to know that we were standing with them, not against them,” says Newman, recounting the lyrics that mentioned “every man’s the same in the good Lord’s sight.”
Eighty-nine protesters have been arrested, alongside with different Black students who had earlier burned a Confederate flag. Eight of them, together with Willis, Mayfield and Cole have been expelled. Cole says they anticipated some type of punishment, however to not get kicked off campus.
“I mean we’ve seen frat boys do stuff much, much more,” he says.
“But those frat boys weren’t trying to change the whole culture of the South either,” Parker tells him.
50 years of silence about their battle
The students sued to be reinstated, however misplaced their court docket battle. Cole says being expelled was a blow at first, however he and Mayfield went on to earn levels from Tougaloo, a traditionally Black school in Jackson, Miss. Mayfield is a lawyer. And Cole is retired from the University of Mississippi. In a sophisticated relationship that spanned greater than 50 years, he went again to earn his doctorate, turned a math professor, and later, assistant provost for multi-cultural affairs.
Linnie Liggins Willis, who had accomplished all of her coursework, but was nonetheless denied a level, left the state of Mississippi for good. She’s retired from a profession as govt director of a housing authority in Ohio.
Willis says she was bitter about the Ole Miss expertise for a very long time, and remained baffled about how shortly legislation enforcement confirmed as much as arrest the protesters.
“For them to be there, poised and ready when we came out of that building? I always wondered about that.”
Years later, it was revealed that the Black Student Union had been below surveillance and infiltrated by the FBI, and the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, the state spying company created to take care of white supremacy. And their story was silenced.
Donald Cole, purple sweater, and Kenneth Mayfield, proper, discuss with University of Mississippi students, Emerson Morris and Aminata Ba, proper, at Fulton Chapel, the web site of a protest for racial equality throughout a live performance in 1970. Former “Up With People” trumpet participant Ric Newman, left, says the group tried to point out solidarity with the Black students who stormed the stage throughout the efficiency.
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Timothy Ivy for NPR
Donald Cole, purple sweater, and Kenneth Mayfield, proper, discuss with University of Mississippi students, Emerson Morris and Aminata Ba, proper, at Fulton Chapel, the web site of a protest for racial equality throughout a live performance in 1970. Former “Up With People” trumpet participant Ric Newman, left, says the group tried to point out solidarity with the Black students who stormed the stage throughout the efficiency.
Timothy Ivy for NPR
“Our history …. it’s almost like it was just wiped away, a clean slate. Nobody talked about us. Nobody heard about us and knew about us,” says Willis. “The university needs to reckon with the fact that we were there. We made a statement and because of that, there are many who are benefiting from that today.”
Fifty years later, Ole Miss did acknowledge their contributions. Willis got the degree that she’d earned but been denied. The college apologized to the expelled students and created scholarships of their honor, and now contains packages like the commemoration this 12 months in order that modern-day students can study from their expertise.
“What we’re focused on now is making sure that we continue to reconcile and repair and build those relationships with those who were impacted and tell the story,” says Shawnboda Mead, Vice Chancellor for Diversity of Community Engagement at the University of Mississippi.
Modern day students embrace the troublesome historical past
“The impact of the 1970 protest was not in vain,” says Robert Mister, a second-generation Black pupil at Ole Miss who says a lot has modified since then, and since his mom was a pupil right here in the 1990s.
“I really don’t like how we hold Ole Miss to its old roots,” he says. “A lot of people in my community tend to say ‘oh, Ole Miss is that racist school. Ole Miss is that white man’s school.’ I’m here to tell you in 2024 that’s most definitely not the case.”
The establishment has labored to distance itself from symbols of the Old South, banning the Confederate battle flag from sporting occasions, as an example. It’s putting in historic markers that extra totally replicate what occurred, and there are even campus slavery excursions now that delve deeply into the historical past right here.
University of Mississippi pupil, Robert Mister, poses for a portrait on the campus, Feb. 18. He’s a junior majoring in electrical engineering. Mister says he is a beneficiary of what Black students demanded in 1970.
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University of Mississippi pupil, Robert Mister, poses for a portrait on the campus, Feb. 18. He’s a junior majoring in electrical engineering. Mister says he is a beneficiary of what Black students demanded in 1970.
Timothy Ivy for NPR
But Ole Miss nonetheless struggles to draw and retain Black professors and students in a means that displays Mississippi. The state’s inhabitants is sort of 40% African-American, the highest share in the nation.
Yet Black students make up solely 11.4% of the University of Mississippi student body. And the share of Black college is even smaller — 6.5%.
Freshman Edward Wilson has seen. “I’m like, where are they? You know, where is this representation and where are people who go here going to see any other representation besides the person who prepares my fries?”
Wilson says studying about what occurred on campus in 1970 has him excited about what protest means to folks his age.
“You’re just trying to find a place in the world,” Wilson says. “It doesn’t have to be some big march for massive things like voting rights, but it can be small scale stuff. Just making your voice heard when you feel like you’ve been shut out of the conversation. That itself is protest to me.”
It’s not misplaced on Wilson that this program comes at a time when some conservative state leaders are seeking to curtail diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at publicly-funded universities, and to squelch frank conversations about troublesome racial historical past.
University of Mississippi pupil, Jordan Isbell, 20, takes photos of fellow pupil, Razabier Davis, 20 with left, Donald Cole and Kenneth Mayfield on the stage of Fulton Chapel on Feb. 15.
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University of Mississippi pupil, Jordan Isbell, 20, takes photos of fellow pupil, Razabier Davis, 20 with left, Donald Cole and Kenneth Mayfield on the stage of Fulton Chapel on Feb. 15.
Timothy Ivy for NPR
“I think that it’s blatantly saying ‘so yeah, it happened. But what about it?'” Wilson says. “If you only want the good parts and not understanding the bad parts, then it becomes willful ignorance at that point.”
His classmate, Emerson Morris, a white girl from Biloxi, Miss., notes that in the 60s, she wouldn’t have been in a position to take part in an occasion like this.
“These are my friends,” Morris says. “This is progress and we still have so much more to do in the future, but we cannot limit the voices of those around us. There’s a place for everybody here.”
For Kenneth Mayfield and Donald Cole, seeing these students asserting their place on campus as we speak, is proof they have been on the proper facet of historical past again in 1970.
NPR’s Walter Ray Watson helped in the reporting and manufacturing of this story.