James Meredith, who was the first black student at the University of Mississippi, drew from the past only to drive home a message for the future during a book signing and speech Thursday at Turnrow Book Co.
Meredith, who entered Ole Miss in 1962, laid out a plan to help improve public education, with a focus on Greenwood and the Mississippi Delta.
Meredith plans to visit all 82 counties in the state promoting his new book, “A Mission From God,” and also to speak about the mission that inspired his book’s title: to help Mississippi blacks help themselves, specifically by improving public education.
“Mississippi is the center of the universe,” Meredith said. “The two biggest issues in western Christian civilization is the white-black race issue and the ‘rich and poor’ issue. Mississippi is at the apex of both. And if anybody in the world can solve the problem about time, it’s Mississippi. And if anywhere in Mississippi is positioned to start that, it’s Greenwood, Mississippi.”
Meredith addressed the historical reasons for the large number of impoverished blacks in the state. He said a people once trained to pick cotton is not trained to do anything anymore.
“And if we continue that,” he said, “we’re going to have a disaster.”
Meredith talked about his triumph at Ole Miss but only to make the point that without improving local public schools, the progress achieved at the university in 1962 would mean nothing.
“Oh, it’s great that anybody can now go,” he said. “But can’t nobody go to Ole Miss that can’t read and write and count sufficiently.”
According to Meredith, 98 percent of the children born in Mississippi who have to depend on public schools can’t go to college at Ole Miss or anywhere else. Most score too low on standardized tests to get into Ole Miss or historically black universities such as Mississippi Valley State University, he said.
“You have to have a 17 on your college entry score to go to Mississippi Valley. The average score is below 14,” he said.
The plans that Meredith laid out for improving the public education system were more philosophical than concrete, and he said after his comments that “government is not the answer, and politicians are government.”
Meredith called instead on the church to raise the children of the community, and he placed specific emphasis on the importance of leadership from within.
Drawing on his yearlong study of the Biblical book of Deuteronomy, Meredith said, “God told Moses to choose the right kind of leaders, and they must be from their own kind. You cannot have anybody else; I don’t care how much they know. Anybody that’s trying to teach a 9-year-old that they can’t get to sit still and listen, can’t teach them. And they ain’t never going to be able to. And the only people that can solve that problem are the people that live and see that child every day.”
Referring to the African proverb that it takes a whole village to raise a child, he stressed the importance of the church in that creed, urging church leaders to take initiative in the fight for better schools.
When asked what role, if any, the public school board should play in improving education in the state, Meredith stated simply that school boards can’t do anything. “The problem is much bigger than that,” he said.
“Public education for the last 40 years ain’t been about nothing but money,” he said. “Forty percent of every dollar that’s come from the federal government over the past 40 years has been siphoned off the top. I don’t think that’s been done or talked about in the past 40 years is the answer.”
The event at Turnrow drew a crowd of about 80, including some members of the Greenwood School Board.
One member of that board, Connie Johnson, spoke about the need for individual attention for children falling behind in reading and writing. “We cannot do this by ourselves,” she told the audience.
“One-on-one attention can get people caught up, but really it’s hearts that have to be changed, so that we can love unconditionally,” Johnson said later.
She said Christians must remember the importance of doing God’s work outside of the church. “I prayed to God three years ago get me out of the walls of my church, and it’s changed my life,” she said. “I believe in loving the way Jesus did. That’s the only thing that’s going to help the children of Mississippi.”
Many in the crowd, including Lexington fourth-grade teacher Brandon Hawkins, found Meredith’s words inspiring. Hawkins, a Teach for America recruit originally from New York City, said Meredith’s words encouraged him to put many of the civil rights hero’s ideas into concrete action.
“I thought it was amazing. Hearing him speak gave me a new challenge to really do even more than I’m already doing to educate my students,” he said. “We need long-lasting after-school activities and volunteers. It really benefits when help comes from the ground up.”
Meredith’s message was not wasted on even the youngest members of the crowd. Erin Kenady, a 10-year-old student at St. Francis of Assisi School, said she thought the speech would help young people like her in the future. “It was great,” she said.
• Contact Jeanie Riess at 581-7235 or jriess@gwcommonwealth.com.
