As I write the speech, I can’t help reflecting on that week 35 years ago. My admission and enrollment at Ole Miss caused a riot. It resulted in President Kennedy’s sending federal troops to the university for the second time in history. It was dangerous, and most of my friends told me, ““Don’t do it.’’ But by challenging the system, I opened doors for generations to come. I made history. I don’t mind taking some pride in that.
At the time, when I walked to the steps of the admissions building at Ole Miss, the struggle of black Americans was a basic one. We wanted our equal rights as Americans, including the right to vote and the right to full access to tax-supported facilities. We wanted the same things white folks wanted: a job, a home in a safe neighborhood, a decent education for our kids and a shot at the American Dream. And most of all we wanted to participate. We still do.
However, somewhere along the line, someone in power decided that the proud black race, a people who built cultures in Africa and built many of the physical structures of this nation, could not survive without a host of federal programs and giveaways. Thus the ““participatory’’ goals, which united blacks and whites behind black Americans, were abandoned and replaced by programs that divided us. A ““dependency mentality’’ was created and fostered by black and white liberals looking to buy power.
The political ““Southern Strategy’’ that Nixon used in his re-election in 1972 was a reaction to this mentality. The architects of the strategy figured that if the liberals were going to buy support with public programs, conservatives should go after the votes of those who have to pay for them. It worked.
This ““dependency mentality’’ is one of the key dynamics of the black underclass today. Another is a ““doomed to fail’’ attitude–that, try as you may, you can’t succeed, mostly because of white racism. It is the predominant rationalization of the black underclass and is somewhat prevalent even in the black working class and middle class. Worst of all, we instill it in our youth at an early age. This way of thinking is self-perpetuating and comes more from a negative self-image than it does from any insurmountable racial roadblock.
No one today inspires me more than Tiger Woods. He impresses me more than anyone else since Joe Louis when I was a boy. He is the confident, proud success that I hoped by now would be commonplace in the black community if only we could participate. However, all of his accomplishments would not have been possible if he had adopted the ““doomed to fail’’ attitude.
In the same way that blacks must reject that minority of whites who are incurable racists, we must also turn away from the small minority of black ““leaders’’ and their white manipulators who perpetuate these negative attitudes.
I have come to realize that while white racism exists, our main roadblocks in the ’90s are ones that have been created by our own so-called leadership. My speaking out about this has left me shunned by the prominent black leadership elite and their white allies. These are the people who have a vested interest in the failed status quo.
Because I feel that I’m right (in the sense of correct), I will push forward. As I look ahead to what I as a pioneer of the past can do to shape a better future for black Americans, I see three big areas where my voice and work can help bring about positive change:
(1) I want to be vocal and confrontational in addressing the issues that are tearing apart the black family and fostering the black underclass. Why are children having children? Why is generation aftergeneration on welfare? Why is black-on-black crime a growing phenomenon? Someone has to openly and aggressively ask questions and demand real answers.
(2) I want to lead black people to the library. If you want to develop a young man into a Tiger Woods, you take him to the golf course. If you want to make him a Michael Jordan, you take him to the basketball court. If you want to develop black Americans into intellectual giants, you take them to the library. There can be only so many Tiger Woodses and Michael Jordans. However, every black American can learn to read and can developintellectually in a way that will help him or her no matter what he or she does.
In 1966 I led a Meredith March Against Fear and was shot in an ambush on a Mississippi highway. This made national news. Walter Cronkite even reported that I’d been killed (a report that some of my political adversaries may have since wished had been a little more accurate). In 1996 I led a Black Man’s March to the Library. This, of course, made no national news but can be more significant to the lives of young blacks in the next decades.
(3) I want to lead a significant percentage of black Americans toward the Republican Party. The Southern Strategy worked only because black Americans crowded into one party, the Democrats. Although the Republicans have a long way to go, I feel they are open to all Americans. We as blacks are ill-served by being part of only one political party. We’re taken for granted. I want to change this.
Things do change and for the better. In 1962 Ole Miss refused to acknowledge that I was a person, that I existed. Last year, on March 21, the University of Mississippi honored me by becoming the home for the James H. Meredith papers. Those who attended the ceremony included blacks, whites and one of the school’s first-year graduate students–my son, Kip, who enrolled and entered the university with none of the fanfare that accompanied his father’s arrival 35 years ago.
