Ole Miss reaches crossroads in racial justice

More than 50 years ago, a deadly riot broke out in Oxford when James Meredith became the first known black student to enroll at Ole Miss. The atmosphere was much different on June 4, 2020, when white and black Oxford residents marched peacefully together to protest racial injustice.
Carter Diggs/MCIR

By Carter Diggs
Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting

The tipping point to a decades-long debate at Ole Miss came 900 miles from the north with the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of a police officer.

His death at the hands of police brought black and white citizens of Oxford to unify in protest in the very same city that once rioted at the prospect of a black man attending the town’s school.

After months of deliberation and delay, this national tragedy led the board of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning to vote to relocate a Confederate monument from the Ole Miss campus — something faculty, staff, administrators and students had been working to achieve for two years.

“Growing up, one of the worst schools we could go to is Ole Miss,” said Rickey Scott, pastor of East St. Peter Missionary Baptist Church just outside Oxford. “In fact, when I was elected as pastor here, I knew God had sent me here for a reason.  Where Oxford is now and where it has come from are a complete 180.”

The roots of the nation’s troubled racial history began with slavery. At Ole Miss, it was cemented in a statue.

The Rev. Rickey Scott, pastor of East St. Peter Missionary Baptist Church outside Oxford, speaks during a march against racial injustice on June 4, 2020, that went from the Oxford Square to the edge of the Ole Miss campus. He earlier had traveled to Minneapolis to join the protests in George Floyd’s home city.
Carter Diggs/MCIR

Bowing to history or embodying racism?

On a spring morning almost 200 years ago, 135 students at the University of Mississippi stacked their books at the edge of the school’s Circle. These 135 men, dubbed the “University Greys,” made up almost the entire student body at the university, and all of them were bound for the Confederate Army. None of them would return.

Less than four decades later, during the rise of the Jim Crow laws, the Oxford chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy dedicated a statue honoring all Confederate veterans from Lafayette County. The marble statue would be placed at the same spot the men stacked their books all those years ago – in one of the most visible areas of the school. This statue would cause the school controversy as the years went on, only snowballing in intensity. Many felt the statue was an important part of the university’s culture, while others saw it as a lingering symbol of racism and prejudice.

Over a century later, on June 18, 2020, the state College Board, after delaying a decision for several months, voted to move the statue to the university graveyard. It will be largely out of public sight, and will join the few hundred men who died during the battle of Shiloh and were laid to rest in the field. This course of action will come at a steep price for the university, however. The board plans to enhance the cemetery with headstones, pave a walkway to the graveyard, and create a memorial to black soldiers that served in the Civil War. All of these changes are expected to cost between $900,000 and $1.2 million dollars -- all funds they plan to raise privately.

Despite most students being gone for the summer, hundreds of protestors came to march June 4 from the Oxford Square to the edge of campus. One of the most prominent voices in this march was Scott, who recounted his time growing up in Mound Bayou, a small Delta town with the largest percentage of African American residents in the United States.

Before marching in Oxford’s protest, Scott had travelled to Minneapolis himself and joined the protests in Floyd’s home city.

“It was like something came over me and told me that I needed to go to Minneapolis,” Scott said. “It was peaceful there, but it was tense. Chaos could have started at any moment. … Everywhere we looked, we see George Floyd. George Floyd on a storefront. George Floyd on a wall. It was like the city itself was rallying around him.”

During the protests, Scott and the other ralliers learned about a new curfew being instituted in the city. Knowing that their time was limited and that police had already begun blocking off expressways, Scott struggled to the front of the protests, toward the very store where Floyd had been killed.

“When I got to the front, they were wanting someone to get up on the stage and close it out,” Scott said. “They were looking all around and everyone wanted to get on the stage. I just raised my hand, and one of them pointed at me.”

When he stepped up to pray, he looked out over all the people who had come to protest. From those on rooftops to the streets below, he saw how people from all walks of life had come to gather around the death of Floyd, earnestly calling out for change.

In that moment, Scott felt he had become part of the solution.

Almost a week later, he took charge at the Black Lives Matter march in Oxford, where he similarly prayed for peace and change.

Black and white residents of Oxford kneel together June 4, 2020, for 8.46 minutes to mark the amount of time a white Minneapolis police officer had his knee on the neck of George Floyd.
Carter Diggs/MCIR

‘I came here for a bachelor’s degree and left with a jail certificate’

In the weeks since the protests began, the University of Mississippi’s faculty has repeatedly come out in support of protesting students. Glenn Boyce, the university’s chancellor, sent a letter to all students shortly after Floyd’s death that affirmed many students’ desires to bring forth change on the university by moving the statue. Right after the IHL’s vote, he sent out another letter, thanking the students for sustaining the movement and continually fighting for change.

“While many played a role in this process, it is important to recognize the group of students who reinvigorated this discussion, researched the issues, and developed proposals for relocation,” Boyce wrote. “They demonstrated the type of leadership that is a hallmark of our students.”

Along with the Confederate statue, sights have also been set on the Mississippi state flag. Leaders of the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University, and the University of Southern Mississippi – the three largest, majority white universities in the state – recently signed a letter calling for the removal of Confederate imagery from the state flag. None of the state’s universities flies the state flag. Neither do most of the state’s private colleges and universities.

The outpouring of support for students stands in stark contrast to the memories of retired longtime faculty member Don Cole, who himself faced opposition from the university for protesting when he enrolled at the university a few years after James Meredith broke the color barrier.

Cole knew when he entered Ole Miss that there was still a lot of ground to cover in getting African-American students equal treatment within the school. No black faculty had been hired, no black athletes had been recruited, and a suspicious number of black students failed courses.

Cole and his colleagues banded together to form the original Black Student Union. From fewer than 100 students, the student organization has grown to encompass more than a thousand members. Cole’s first time at the university would be cut short, however. After a protest at a Fulton Chapel concert in 1970, he was arrested and expelled.

“I came here for a bachelor’s degree and left with a jail certificate,” Cole said.

Years later, after receiving a bachelor’s degree at Tougaloo College and two master’s degrees from the University of Michigan and the State University of New York, he was welcomed back at the University of Mississippi so he could pursue a doctorate in mathematics. After he graduated and worked in various industries, the university welcomed him back once more as a faculty member.

One might wonder why Cole would return to the very university that spurned and expelled him. Cole isn’t completely sure himself.

“I don’t know in totality, but part of it was an opportunity to change the school in a direct way,” Cole said.

Having worked at the university for 25 years, he was able to oversee the various changes the university has gone through over the years. In his time, many university traditions and iconography, such as Colonel Rebel, the playing of Dixie at football games, and, now, the Confederate statue have been challenged. Cole himself became the university’s senior administrator for diversity issues and a beloved figure on campus.

Despite all these obvious changes, the biggest stride, however, was in how the university educates its students, Cole said.  As time went on, the university became more and more open to teaching students the reality of racial injustice and the lived experiences of people of color. What was once an institution where dissenting could risk one’s education is now one making strides toward standing by all its students.

“I’ve seen minds and hearts change for individuals,” Cole said. “I’ve seen people touched in a way that never ceases to amaze and invigorate me.”

Young children join a peaceful march in Oxford on June 4, 2020, to protest racial injustice following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of police.
Carter Diggs/MCIR

IHL’s decision to move the statue ‘the best birthday present’

Still, there exists some pushback to the changing of the statue from both students on campus and longtime residents of the state. Constance Slaughter-Harvey, the university’s first black female law graduate, thinks back to her early days at the university and remembers the message the statue sent her as she entered.

“The mere second I saw those statues and other symbols of slavery gave me notice that I was about to tackle a path that had yet been traveled, and I could expect to have a number of obstacles facing my way,” Slaughter-Harvey said.

Upon hearing that the IHL board’s vote was set for June 18, the same day as her birthday, Slaughter-Harvey remarked that the statue’s removal would be “the best birthday present they could give” her.

Slaughter-Harvey expressed pride and joy at the young people of America joining together to protest both a local statue and police brutality nationwide. Even more than 50 years later, she still sees much of the same spark in today’s protests that she saw in the ones of her age.

“To be honest, I’m not sure that they’re much different,” Slaughter-Harvey said. “There are obviously more people involved, but when we marched we had the same fervor, commitment, drive, and enthusiasm as when police officers abused us. … I think the advantage these young people have is television and videos, so that … can be shared across the world”

Many of the changes in activism and civil rights movements were possibly more issues of visibility rather than an actual shift in hostility, Slaughter-Harvey said.

“There were no cameras that could go viral … back then, nobody knew what happened unless they were there. Today you don’t have to be there to know what happened,” Slaughter-Harvey said.

Looking toward possible future changes at her alma mater, Slaughter-Harvey wishes for the names of several buildings to be changed, as they bear the names of noted segregationists, including Paul B. Johnson and James K. Vardaman.

“I graduated from the law school when it was still the Lamar building,” Slaughter-Harvey said. “I knew then what he stood for, and so when I walked through those doors, I knew what to expect.  I think that’s a tremendous burden to put on people.”

Already stirring up conflict is the debate over the state flag. Both the Southeastern Conference and NCAA have announced they will not allow championship games to be played in any state in which the Confederate flag is flown, an extension of a 2001 policy announced by the NCAA. This policy will exclude Mississippi collegiate teams from hosting baseball or basketball regionals until the state flag changes.

Back in Oxford, just as the debate winds down on one statue, it has begun to open upon another. Another Confederate statue has long stood on the Square, the heart of the town, in front of the Lafayette County Courthouse. This statue, just like the university’s, is impossible for residents and visitors to miss.

Oxford Mayor Robyn Tannehill recently released comments calling for the statue to be moved, stating that it “does not represent our diverse state or our desire to make every resident and visitor feel welcome.”

The discussion will continue as the Lafayette Board of Supervisors debates the fate of Oxford’s other controversial statue. Supervisors kicked off the discussion with a community meeting Monday. Cole and several other community members attended to give their side of history. The meeting, which was recorded live, can be watched here (https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=322587486747035). These voices, as well as many others, will continue to sound in an ongoing dialogue that pits the tradition and history of Oxford against the desire of many citizens to make the town more welcoming to all.

This story was produced by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization that seeks to inform, educate and empower Mississippians in their communities through the use of investigative journalism. Sign up for our newletter.