Civil rights icons visit to inspire young Minnesota activists

Three civil rights icons visited the Twin Cities this week to share their experiences and perspectives with a new generation of activists.

James Meredith, a key figure during several flash-point moments in the 1960s struggle for racial equality, said he identifies with every Black victim of police brutality.

"I am George Floyd," he said, likening Floyd's death in Minneapolis police custody in 2020 to murders during slavery, the lynchings that swept the nation after the Civil War and the persecution of teenagers such as the Scottsboro Boys.

In 1962, Meredith, who turned 88 on Friday, singlehandedly desegregated the University of Mississippi, despite a white riot and attempts by Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett to block his admission.

In 1966, Meredith was shot while undertaking a solo Walk Against Fear from Memphis to Jackson, Miss. Civil rights leaders, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., organized a march of 15,000 participants to complete Meredith's walk.

Referring to his assailant, a white man named Aubrey Norvell, Meredith said, "He shot at me three times, and hit me twice. The only thing that mattered to me is he didn't kill me." Norvell served 18 months of a five-year sentence.

Joining Meredith in his visit to the Twin Cities was Terrence Roberts, 79, of the Little Rock Nine, one of the nine Black students who integrated Little Rock (Ark.) Central High School in 1957. When Gov. Orval Faubus called out the state National Guard to try to keep the students from entering the high school, President Dwight Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the nine into the school.

The Black teenagers walked through racist mobs to enter the school in a scene that played out on TV sets across America.

"It was very scary," Roberts told a group of students seated Friday at a table at Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in north Minneapolis. Roberts, who was 16 at the time, said he volunteered to be one of the students to integrate the school. "I thought my name would show up on the coroner's list," he said. "The law was not on our side."

He said that once admitted to the high school, the Little Rock Nine endured both hostile students and teachers who sent the message: "We don't want you here."

Also visiting the Twin Cities was Minnijean Brown-Trickey, another member of the Little Rock Nine, who had to leave earlier in the week.

The three were invited to Minnesota by Kristina Chien, 29, who is studying both law and medicine at the University of Minnesota. "I thought there was a lot of institutional knowledge that these leaders had that we would benefit from in Minneapolis," she said.

During a number of roundtable discussions, the civil rights veterans had forceful points to make.

Roberts, a retired professor of psychology, said he wanted to impart to the younger generation of activists that "the battle continues, and there is no end in sight."

"The main issue is the embracing of racist ideology in all levels of society," he said. "It is very overt for every single American. If we put people in jail, it would end very soon." For example, he told students that business leaders who reject a job applicant on racial grounds should be jailed.

Wearing an Ole Miss hat, Meredith chatted Friday afternoon in the hotel lobby of the Hilton Minneapolis after meeting with the students.

"What needs to happen now is that the legacy of slavery and the consequences of segregation need to be dealt with immediately, and that should start today," he said.

Meredith said he was not surprised by the harsh reaction he felt from classmates at the University of Mississippi. That's because he'd already experienced similar attitudes in the Air Force where he'd served nine years, he said.

At the Topeka (Kan.) Air Force Base in 1952, he was assigned to a second-floor room with a white airman as a roommate. Immediately, all the other whites on the floor, including his roommate, moved to another floor.

"It didn't bother me," Meredith said with a grin. "I already thought they were stupid and I was smart."

There have been dramatic changes at Ole Miss, including the erection of a statue of Meredith. He said he attended the unveiling. What was his reaction? "I thought I deserved it," he said with a smile.

According to materials he is distributing, Meredith is now on "a mission from God" to start a Bible society reading group in every county in Mississippi, encouraging families to read the Bible from cover to cover and "uplift the moral character of America by teaching the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule."

On Friday afternoon, both Meredith and Roberts watched the televised sentencing of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for Floyd's murder. Chauvin received 22 ½ years in prison.

Meredith called it "the most important trial since the end of the Civil War," citing the number of Black men killed by police.

"It should have been longer," Roberts said of the sentence. "People of color tend to get maximum sentences and people who are white get less."

Meredith and Roberts got high marks from some of the young Black students who listened to them this week.

"It's phenomenal," said Jerome Treadwell, 17, of St. Paul's Highland Park High School, who organized a statewide high school walkout in April in solidarity with the victims of police violence. "It's given me an opportunity to learn from the people who risked their lives so we can continue the fight."

Randy Furst • 612-673-4224

Twitter: @randyfurst