Ghosts of Mississippi

In 1962 the Ole Miss campus erupted in violence over integration and swelled with pride over a powerful football team. Wright Thompson explores how that tumultuous fall of 1962 still grips the state.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to the cost of these Dreams from Right Thompson,
a podcast about sports stories from I Heeart Media, Graphic
Audio and Go Rodeo. This next episode, it's Ghosts of Mississippi.
So lately we've been grappling a lot with the history

(00:26):
that we've been taught and the ones that we haven't.
I mean, the conversation has been largely around what's been
left out of our textbooks. And this piece is one
that Right wrote over a decade ago. It really strange
that it was written over a decade ago. It wouldn't
be a shock to anyone who has heard Right speak.
But he is from Mississippi and is very much a
byproduct of Mississippi. His family, uh is very close to

(00:50):
all Miss and that university there, and for people who
don't know, Ole Miss is formally known as the University
of Mississippi. But every Mississippi fan would them as the
old miss Rebels, Fans sing Dixie in the stands during
the game, and up until very recently, football players would
run onto the field with cheerleaders carrying the world's largest

(01:11):
Confederate battle flag. You know, I think people sort of
look to sports to get away from politics, or at
least rhetorically, that's what a lot of people say. But
you know, so many school programs are grappling with things
that they allow in their sports fandom that would otherwise
be not acceptable behavior if you were to start it today.

(01:31):
All that to say that in the American South, you
will if you go to a SEC college program, you
will see lots of things that seem out of touch
with where the country is headed. And those are not
things that are dying quietly. And it's interesting to see
where the seeds of that come from in this piece

(01:52):
that Right wrote, well, Right has a really great line,
which is what is the cost of knowing our past
and what is the cost of not? And I think
this peace is really about Right retelling a part of
our past that he never learned and making sure others
get to hear it. So this goes to Mississippi. I

(02:15):
grew up surrounded by all of this imagery. I didn't
even know. I mean it sounds so dumb, especially people
listening who aren't from deep deep South. I didn't I
think it was good or bad. I didn't even know

(02:38):
what it meant to other people. I mean, it is
a you know, there was no Internet, you know what
I mean? Like it, It's just weird to think about now.
Part one, The Battle, September nine. The players can hear

(03:35):
the noise. They can't see anything but the locker room
walls inside Mississippi Memorial Stadium and Jackson, but they can
hear the noise. It's halftime and Old miss is beating
an overmatch Kentucky, though just barely. What's worse, the Rebels
have been uncharacteristically sloppy. Early in the game. Bruising fullback

(03:56):
Buck Randall, considered by many to be the bad son
of a bitch on campus, has a touchdown call back
because of a penalty. This is not like the team's
coached by John Vault, who runs his squad like a corporation,
all business, no rab race speeches. The scene in the
stands above the locker room is alive with color, a

(04:18):
circus of motion, most of the forty one thousand spectators
furiously waving Confederate battle flags. The band plays Dixie. The
crowd sings along, waving those flags and cheering. There are
no black fans in the stadium, and on nights like these,
it's easy to forget the South lost the war in

(04:41):
some ways, that's precisely the point. A young politician named
William Winner looks around and feels like a stranger. How
can this be happening? The crowd shakes with indignation, the
air filling with rebel yells from the mouths of doctors
and bankers and lawyers and priests, and Winner thinks, so

(05:05):
this must be what a Nazi rally felt like. Mississippi
Governor Ross Barnett, a prominent member of the Dixie Kratz
and supporter of racial segregation, is at the game. He
is wearing a pen that reads never. The crowd screams
for him. Unbeknownst to them, hours earlier, Barnett made a

(05:29):
secret deal with the Kennedy's to have the first black student,
James Meridith, enrolled. I only you are feeling about row
Mississippi and the fact that Jay, you don't want to
carry out that court on and what can they do
to maintain Laura Uto event the gathering of a mob,
and actually taken by the mob. But once again he's

(05:52):
on the verge of changing his mind. He has been
so hated and now is so loved. One hundred and
one years earlier, all but four students at Old miss
dropped out of school to form Company A of the
eleventh Mississippi Infantry, the University Grays. On July three, eighteen

(06:13):
sixty three, at Gettysburg, the unit rose from safety and
made a feudal rush from Seminary Ridge. Everyone was killed
or injured. In history, name their suicide, mission pickets charge.
The school's sports teams would be called rebels to honor
their sacrifice. The young men and women in the stands

(06:35):
on this day in nineteen sixty two are just three
generations removed from those lost souls. William Winner grew up
listening to his grandfather tell him about riding with the
Confederate Army. The male students, especially those who have grown
up with similar stories, feel something moved deep inside themselves tonight.

(06:56):
The emotions are real, and in case anyone misses the connects,
the next morning's paper will devote two pages to Robert E.
Lee's March North. Governor Barnett just can't help himself. The
enthusiasm of the crowd is taking him out to see
A microphone appears at midfield. A single spotlight swings across

(07:19):
the field until it illuminates the Governor Barnett walks to
the microphone. The crowd falls silent. He raises his right fist.
I love Mississippi, he yells. The crowd roars, even the
moderates feeling chills. Okay, I'm not a video on you.

(07:46):
I love, I love hurt people. I'm a thank go ahead.

(08:09):
The flag waving gross frantic when the roar gets louder
and the yelling and screaming drowns him out, and Barnett
doesn't say another word. He doesn't have to to be
an African American in this world isn't much different than
it was in eighteen sixty one. The scene that William

(08:32):
Winter called a Nazi rally actually has its roots in
that's when President Harry Truman signed the first civil rights
legislation desegregating the United States Army. That year, something new
popped up at ole miss football games Confederate flags. The

(08:52):
band started playing Dixie. Someone commissioned the largest rebel flag
ever for the band to carry on to the field vault,
and only his second season as coach, gave those fans
something to cheer about. The football team might not have
intended it, but two people in the state the squad
became the last Confederate soldiers, and by this point in

(09:15):
nineteen sixty two, the atmosphere is intoxicating for half the
population and toxic for the other. The black community feels
under siege. On the day of the Kentucky game, radio
stations around the state played Dixie over and over and over.
Merley Evers, whose husband Medger is the head of the

(09:37):
Mississippi in double a CP, is working in her kitchen
with two radios playing for surround sound. As the hours
go by, she catches herself singing along with the radio.
I wish I was in the land of Cotton. Old
times They're are not forgotten. Look Away. She is horrified.

(09:58):
She despises the song dick see, but even she is
being sucked in. When Barnett has finished his speech, the

(10:23):
state is in a frenzy. Leaflets circulate through the stadium
with lyrics to a new song, which also had been
printed in the paper that morning. A few people leaven discussed,
but many stay and sing never never, never, no, never,
never never. We will not yield an inch of any
field fixes another. Toddy ain't yielding to nobody. Ross is

(10:46):
standing like Gibraltar, and he shall never Falter ask us
what we say. It's to hell with Bobby Kay. Never
shall our emblems go from Colonel reb to old Black Joe.
That's all our net needs to hear. The deal is off.
James Meredith will not be enrolled. Never the Rebels going

(11:09):
to beat Kentucky, though they managed just one more touchdown.
The fervent Omen's fans file out of the stands. A
young African American boy named Leroy Watlington, who would grow
up to be an influential preacher, lived off the highway
leading out of town. He has learned to dread home
football games. These fans, many drunk on illegal booze, yelled

(11:32):
racial slurs at his family as they inched back home.
People are lying me and calling me things. Well, you've
given up, I said. I had to say, no, I'm
not giving up, not giving up any fight'll give up.
I have courage in face and little in this right.
You understand, that's just the Mississippi people, and I understand.
But I don't think anybody in the Mississippi or any

(11:53):
place I wants a lot of people killed. Oh no, no,
that's any statement any time about in Washington. After Barnett
makes the phone call that the deal is off. The
wheels are turning. Staff members take papers to President John F. Kennedy.
When signed, these papers will federalize the Mississippi National Guard

(12:16):
and begin the process of sending US Army regulars to
the South, something he desperately hoped to avoid. Kennedy sits
down in the treating room to sign and date the document.
Is it past midnight? He asks, It's twenty seconds past twelve.
Staff member responds. Kennedy nods and signs the order, then
writes the date Septembo. The genie is out of the

(12:43):
bottle and no force on Earth, least of all Governor
Ross Barnett will be able to push it back in again.
In the early morning hours of Sunday, September sixty two,
James Meredith waits he has been waiting his entire life.

(13:06):
When he was just a kid, his daddy told him
stories about their family, about how his great grandfather had
been the last legitimate chief of the Choctaw nation. The
indignity of that fall from grace cast a shadow on
Meredith's early life, and it shaped him. Convinced him to
leave segregated Mississippi and joined the Air Force and it

(13:27):
brought him back home again, a twenty nine year old
who wanted to destroy white supremacy. On the day of
John F. Kennedy's inauguration, he applied to Old Miss. In
other words, he had been preparing for this moment for decades,
getting his mind ready, reading, trying to find out the

(13:47):
secret to ordinary men doing extraordinary things. Meredith fought in
the courts, eventually winning the right to matriculate. For most
of September, federal agents were trying to enroll him, but
we're turned back by politicians. Meredith and the FEDS thought
a deal had been arranged, that the waiting was finally over,

(14:07):
but Barnett's call fixed that. Finally. Fed up, Robert Kennedy
threatens Barnett. The President is going on live television to
tell the nation and Mississippians in particular, that the governor
has been promising them one thing while dealing with the
hated Kennedy's behind their backs. Segregation is about to end

(14:29):
at Old Miss. The first places the court's order to you,
which I guess is well out your position, you know,
but I'm up against Ms. Frendon. I took an opening
in order to buy it to the Lord of this state,
an isle of constituting here and the United States. Meredith
and Head Marshal Jim McShane climb into a green twin

(14:50):
engine Border Patrol Cessna and take off destination Oxford, Mississippi.
As Meredith and McShane make their way to Oxford, coach
Vault said into the film room and begins to work.
Two winds down, seven to go. Many of the players
who had gone home to see their families after the
Saturday Kentucky game start to make their way back to

(15:11):
campus that evening as well. Buck Randall heads back to
Oxford from the Delta through the flat lands, white cotton
all around, waiting to be picked. On campus. Quarterback Glenn
Griffin stares out a window. Federal marshals have surrounded the
Lyceum Building, the oldest structure on campus, where Meredith will
register in the morning. What are they doing here, Griffin wonders.

(15:35):
Players wander off to see what the commotion is all about.
Sam Owen, a wise guy lineman nicknames Soup Moan, hangs
around at the back of the crowd, taking in the scene.
So does Louis Guy, one of the most popular players
on campus. Jim Weatherly sophomore quarterback watches too. Hundreds of

(15:57):
students fill the circle of grass in front of the Marshal,
who have gathered near the lyceum. It feels almost like
a pep rally, topped by a large dial up of
defiance co eds right on the backs of convertibles around
the street in front of the building, rebel flags flying
from the cars, the familiar chance from the stadium ringing out,

(16:18):
but slightly altered like hatty tiddy, Gasha maddi, Who the
hell are we? Flim flam bim bam, white folks by
damn again. The marshals grit their teeth. Darkness settling over Oxford.
It will be a long time before sunrise. The players
watch the madness unfold. Some joined the mob, and there's

(16:40):
a lot of people up there, and they started screaming
ash and tell us go back home, and who the
hell do you think you are? And you just waved
on them and just drove down to the campus. One player,
a burly xboxer turn lineman named Don Dixon, disrupts an
interview while a friend smashes the report order's camera. Mostly

(17:01):
though they stand to the side, some amazed, some frightened,
the violence increases, as if the dark offers absolution. First
it's a smash camera, then a toss cigarette. The mob
surrounds a Dallas television reporter, George Yoder, sitting in his
station wagon with his wife in the passenger seat. Someone

(17:24):
reaches in and grabs his camera, which is thrown at
the Marshals. Then the mob turns on Yoder's wife, reaching
for her like a scene from a zombie movie, screaming
you in word loving yankee bitch. She is from Jackson, Mississippi. Finally,
after watching the scene with amusement, some state troopers lead

(17:45):
the Yoders to safety. Later, their car will be flipped
over and burned. The mob closes in on the Marshals,
missiles coming now from every direction, starting adolescent, slowly becoming
more adult, from rotten eggs to firebombs. A construction site
not far away is discovered and bricks rained down on

(18:07):
the white painted helmets of the Marshals. A group takes
down the American flag and runs up the Confederate battle flag.
The chain snarls at half staff, where the flag will
remain throughout the night. The stars and bars a beacon
heralding a long gone moment when a bunch of college
boys rose and charge from Seminary Ridge. A campus security

(18:32):
officer finds Vault and asked would the coach be willing
to try to calm the crowd. Vault wanders through the
mob for a while, then rushes to Miller Hall. At
seven thirty, Barnett goes on the radio to announce that
Meredith has been brought to Mississippi by force. Gentlemen, the
Governor said, you were trampling on the sovereignery of a

(18:53):
great state and depriving it of every vestige of honor
and respect. As a member of the United States, You're
destroying the constitution of the United States, the governor said,
and then he added, May God have mercy on your souls.
Twenty minutes later, Marshall McShane orders his men to put

(19:16):
on their gas mats. A few minutes after that, as
President Kennedy prepares to address the nation, a heavy length
of lead pipe bounces off the head of a marshal,
denning his helmet. The marshals gripped their billy clubs tighter.
Joe Wilkins, Senior wide receiver, standing close to the marshals
by a small magnolia tree near the sidewalk. Here's someone

(19:39):
shout let him have it all. Hell breaks loose. The
Marshal sprayed tear gas into the crowd, the rounds popping off,
sounding exactly like helicopter rotors turning. A haze covers the campus,
and tears streamed down everyone's face. It's at this moment
that President Kennedy comes in over the air waves. Good evening,

(20:03):
my fellow citizens, the orders of the court in the
case of Meredith versus Fair. I'm beginning to be carried out.
Mr James Meredith is now in residence on the campus
of the University of Mississippi. JFK's words carry over radios
of cars parked near the last cum adding an eerie soundtrack.

(20:26):
The whoop of tear gas guns, the screaming of the mob,
the cloud covering the campus, and the voice of the
President of the United States in the background, urging everyone
to remain calm. You have a great tradition to uphold,
a tradition of honor and courage, one on the field
of battle and on the gridiron as well as the
university campus. You have a new opportunity to show that

(20:50):
you are a man of patriotism and integrity. It lies
in your courage to accept those laws, in our pledge
to man's freedom. With tear gas seeping into the team
dorm through the towels beneath the doors and windows, Fault

(21:11):
gathers his players. The sounds of explosions frighten them, as
does a new sound gunshots. Most of them are hunters,
and so they listen and recognize the calibers of the
round slowly rising. While assistant coaches patrol the halls, Vault says,
we have to band together. We have a purpose. We

(21:33):
must keep our poise. The players get the message. Pull tight,
stay together no matter what happens. Don't go out. But
Buck Randall wants to go out, and telling him to
stay put is like telling him not to eat ice cream.
He slips into the night where the civil war has begun,
anew in the North is losing. Later, the events of

(21:58):
tonight will seem in Poe Sible. An Associated Press reporter
shot in the back, A bulldozer and fire trucks stolen
and driven at the marshals. A French reporter is shot dead,
and so was a local resident. Dozens of marshals are
shot are injured. A sniper sets up on the Confederate statue,
first shooting out the lights, then turning his weapon on

(22:20):
the lyceum, pushing the marshals inside high powered dear rounds,
shattering the door and window frames. During the night, Chief
Burns Tatum, the head of security for the university, spots
Buck Randall in the crowd and pulls him into the
besieged lyceum, where Randall comes face to face with the
carnage in a quarter shot through the neck. Marshall Jane

(22:43):
Same from Indianapolis, is bleeding out on the floor as
his fellow officers kneel over him, helpless and frustrated. Where
the hell's the doctor, one yells, this man is dying.
Tatum tells the marshals that Randall plays football for the rebels,
and that sends some of them for the edge. Come on,
son of Marshall, snarls, we got something to show you.

(23:06):
They push him real close to Same. You see him,
You see him. He's bleeding to death, and then they
push Buck Randall back out into the crowd. Randall tries
to explain to the mob what they've done. There's a
man in their dying, he says, A crowd begins to gather,
and people don't like what they're hearing. Someone yells pull

(23:26):
him down, another one yells murder him. Every time someone
challenges him, Randall's snarls, come on, boy, come on, tried it.
The people who know him, the students, don't get within
a dozen feet. The folks who came here just to
fight sent some major alpha mojo because they don't mess
with him either, But that doesn't mean they intend to listen.

(23:49):
They mock him, and finally Randall gives up. The crowd
separates and lets him through. He walks back to Miller
Hall alone, disappearing into the haze through the long night.
The marshals wait for the U. S. Army regulars. The
cavalry in the form of the hundred and first and
eighty second Airborne, and an elite military police unit is

(24:12):
on the way. Troops landed in Memphis, Tennessee, and drove
the eighty five miles south to the Old miss campus.
For the first time in a century, the United States
Army is invading the state of Mississippi. Black families leave
their homes and stand on the side of the highway,
silent as if at attention, watching the Union Army speed

(24:34):
toward Oxford on campus. The troops dismount and rushed to
rescue the Marshals in local National Guard, who are almost
out of tear gas and scared of being overrun. A
hundred and sixty year wounded twenty eight of them by gunfire.
The troops form a wedge and march past the sorority houses,

(24:57):
where girls curse and throw books. They march through a
storm of bricks and molotiv cocktails, never breaking stride. The
formation gets within sight of the Marshals, whose relief comes
out as a long, loud cheer. By a little after
five a m. The troops have pushed the rioters off campus. Students,

(25:20):
the football team at Miller Hall and Meredith over at
Baxter Hall, began dressing for class, the smell of tear
gas still heavy in the air. Marshals slump over at
the lyceum, surrounded by cigarette butts and bloody gauze. Others
eat sea rations under trees. In front of the building,
two men, the French reporter and a local jukebox repairman,

(25:42):
lie dead. The campus priest walks through the tear gas
and takes down the Confederate flag. The battle is over
and now a state, a school, and a football team
have to pick up the pieces. If that story felt

(26:07):
like a history lesson from two, it was a failure,
was the thing I kept saying, like, this thing needs
to be about right now, even though so much of
the action happened in the past. And uh so that
was that was my like mantra that this needs to
be a story about right now. You are what you

(26:30):
were taught. Why wouldn't they run out behind it? It
was on our state flag until like ten minutes ago.
I mean, I'm stunned that anybody I thought it was weird,
but you know, knowing and not knowing, I mean, I'm
still wrestling with that. I mean, I had a story
in The Atlantic about the barn room until was killed recently,

(26:52):
and it's about it's intergenerational. It's about teaching. So what
do we teach people about the past? You know? And
because that's they will be the citizens and so you know,
I mean, there's a in that in Mentel story. And
this just feels very relevant to this old miss story.

(27:13):
Even though stories feel very connected to me. Actually, uh
to me, this was a story about teaching and about
what you learn and what you don't, what you want
to learn, and what you don't and why? Part two
Reconstruction October one. The old Miss Houston game is only

(27:38):
five days away, and thousands of federal troops are camped
out on Volts practice field. More camped outside of town,
one radio call away from marching on Oxford. Helicopters, movement
and equipment. Troops screen every car coming on to campus,
looking in trunks and under seats from weapons. Mereth goes

(27:59):
to class escorted by armed guards, harass the entire way.
The first walk of the morning brings frothing crowds. How
are you getting school? That's fine? That's fine? How are
these students are talking to any reactions and just acting
like student types of Someone gets right in his face

(28:20):
and screams was it worth two lives and calls him
the in word. Meredith puts on his poker face. There's
really only one overwhelming reason not to just shutter the place.
The highly ranked rebels, no school, no football. Minutes before
the Houston game kicks off, the OLMOS team is gathered

(28:42):
again in the locker room, but everything is different now.
Fault almost never gives pregame speeches. He thinks they're silly,
but right now he needs to say something law. It
feels like the entire university is riding on the backs
of his team. He needs them to understand end these
young guys. He needs them to see it is very

(29:05):
important that we play this game, boys bought, says, and
we have to win it. The team roars in response
and rushes out of the locker room onto the field.
Vault gets chills watching the Rebels dominate undefeated Houston for seven,
with Griffin throwing three touchdown passes to Guy. But the

(29:28):
most emotional two ovations of the day have nothing to
do with the game. One comes at the beginning when
Barnett enters his box. The other comes when the public
address man announces other scores from around the country. Michigan
has beaten Army, the hated invader of Old miss seventeen
to nothing. The crowd goes wild. Group data Mississippi cannot

(29:54):
coop with the United States Army or the Federal Armed Forces,
and our sorrow in state proclaims to all of our
sister states that these acts are in violation and are
utter contempt of the rights of our people as guaranteed
by the Federal constitution. Two days later, Meredith heads for

(30:19):
the cafeteria for dinner. Most of the other students have
already eaten, and they're just milling around. A few more
arrived than a few more, until the crowd is formed. Meredith,
accompanied by a marshall, sits at a table near a window,
working his way through hamburger, steak, and potatoes. The crowd
chants eat inward eat. A student throws a hand sized

(30:45):
rock through the cafeteria window. It lands three ft away,
glass falling on the marshal and Meredith. Troops rushed to
the scene. The mob hurls the usual projectiles during the commotion,
Meredith shake is hustled out the back. The insults continue,
along with the constant cursing effigy's hanging from dorm windows.

(31:08):
Mayo pours in more positive than negative, but the negative
is truly vile. Meredith reads every letter. Two students who
eat dinner with him have their rooms wrecked in word
lover painted on the walls with shoe polish. Glenn griffing

(31:31):
and at quarterback. Now for the rebels keeps the ball
and it's a first down for old Miss Crash. You
have made the stop. Griffin hands off the jettings. Now
he moves up the middle from five more to the Arkansas.
The Old Miss football team keeps winning, but the team
continues a steady drop in the national polls. After the
two lane victory, the Associated Press poll lowers Old Miss
from fourth to seven. After beating Vandy a week later,

(31:54):
the team stays at seven, probably too far back to
climb to number one. Coach Vault sits in his office
and worries about his team. A loss in this group
of amazing young men will fade from memory, just another
Old Miss team to almost go undefeated. Some Mississippians wonder
whether there aren't other reasons, and a Pete reporter was

(32:15):
shot in Oxford, you know. Others believe or hope that
victory over l s U will fix everything and put
Old Miss back in the thick of the national title hunt.
The L s U game is just a week away,
and all the old anxiety is flooding back. L s
U ruined three perfect seasons and fifty eight, fifty nine
and nineteen sixty, and fans and players obsess over this pattern.

(32:38):
Heading into Tiger Stadium on a two yard line that's
half by Flaggert, Illinois is a part of thanks. She's
running hard eas November three sixty two, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The rebels gather in the him. The concrete walls seemed

(33:02):
to amplify the noise of Tiger Stadium nearby. Mike the
Tiger lounges in his cage and without warning lets out
a hungry growl. Wide Receiver Wilkins jumps. It would scare
the living ship out of you, player, Billy Champion would
say later. Jitters passed from one rebel to the next
like the flute. A stiff wind blows across the field

(33:24):
at fifteen miles an hour, coming in off the river.
L s U tough to beat here takes a seven
and nothing lead with a little more than two minutes
left and a half. Despite the build up, or again
maybe because of it, the rebels look sluggish him. A

(33:50):
day after a game of sex, you are first down
of the old massot ole. Miss starts to drive of
its own, but still seems a little sleepy. Then one
of L s U defensive tackles pops Lineman Jim done
away in the face, bloodying his lip. The site and
taste of his own blood awakens Big Jim, who bulldozes
his man the rest of the night, opening up big

(34:13):
holes where stop my yard? I burst out from all
of it and the l s US wrong. He passes
the grandson it's good which twenty three seconds left and
a half, Griffin has his team at the l s
U ten. After a couple of incompletions, Griffin hits A J. Holloway,

(34:36):
who juggles the ball but secures it just as two
L s U defenders grabbed him at about the three
yard line. As the clock ticks to zero, he breaks free,
crossing the goal line. A missed extra point leaves the
Rebels down seven to six, but at least they have
life in the second half. With Old Miss at the
l s U. One, Vault pulls out the trickery they've

(34:57):
been practicing all week. Chuck Morris swings to the right,
faking a run, only to pull up short and toss
the ball to Guy eighteen yards down field. Two plays later,
Griffin finds Guy to put the Rebels up for good.

(35:19):
Old Miss wouldn't be the top five team on the
road again for forty six years, and his time runs out.
The players run off the field yelling weird number one.
The locker room is a mad house. Vault stands calmly
amid the chaos. What an effort, he thinks, the best
I've ever seen. He sweated through his shirt out there.

(35:40):
He cannot wait for the new rankings to come out.
His Ole Miss Rebels are the best team in the nation,
and he's sure of it. A reporter asked whether he
has any doubt how the wire service polls should go,
none at all, he says. The team stays focused on

(36:09):
the one thing it can control, winning. They've now gone
through an entire season unbeaten and untied, something no Old
Miss team had done before. But a few hours later
they get the news no national title. USC beat Notre Dame.
The Trojans are tenant, oh and they will face number
two Wisconsin and the Rose Bowl. The winner will be

(36:31):
the next national champion. The Rebels final game would be
played for Pride. December seven, n A cold wind blows
through campus. Students wearing sweaters and overcoats carried books past Meredith.

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They look away. Confederate flags still hang from the windows,
but no one screams at him. Still he isn't welcome.
If he tried to hold the door open most students
would stand in place until he gave up. But the
threats of violence have slowed to a trickle. A forced
tolerance has settled over the campus. Gleam griffing in a

(37:14):
quarterback now for the Rebels, keeps the ball and games
three to the Arkansas thirty five, and it's a first
down for ole Miss. Crash Year have made the stop.
On New Year's Day in nineteen sixty three, Ole Miss
wins the Sugar Bowl seventeen to thirteen. It's the Buck
Randall's show. Readily hands off the Buck Randall East matches
for a yard of the Arkansas twenty nine, where he

(37:35):
stopped by bol final player the game gripping drives the middle,
stopped with no game and that's how the game ends.
The final score ole Miss seventeen, Arkansas thirteen. The Rebels
have done it. They put together their first and only
perfect season. But fee will ever talk about the nineteen

(37:57):
sixty two team without also manning James Meredith, and people
won't remember Old Miss for the dominant teams and the
Sugar Bowl victories. They will remember it for a long night.
In nineteen sixty two, James Meredith and the other soon
to be graduates march from the library toward the grove,

(38:18):
passing through the lyceum where all of that violence had
taken place just months before, as a time reminder that
changed his unnatural component of tuition the last few weeks
of class, James Meredith wears one of Governor Barnett's never
pins upside down on his lapel. His parents sit in

(38:39):
the crowd as he walks across the stage, including his
proud father, Moses, the son of a slave. The commencement
speaker tells the graduates that the South is changing more
every day and they need to take advantage and not
be left behind. About a dozen years ago, on a

(39:04):
football Saturday, a group of guys from that sixty two
teams stood around the grove wondering why nobody ever seemed
to bring up their perfect season, the only one in
school history. While standing there, the guys conceived a monument
to honor their time in It was unveiled and archway
in the grove that the team walks through every day,

(39:25):
another beloved tradition. It is called the Walk of Champions,
and it was paid for by the members of the
nineteen sixty two Old Miss football team, reporting the story
took me places I'm not sure I wanted to go.
I've always loved Mississippi, but each new layer I on
earth made that love a more difficult and complex thing

(39:46):
to maintain. I read James Meredith's mail, not photo copies,
the actual letters. I found my relatives name in a
military policeman's notebook, though never an explanation of why, And
later a photo of another great uncle urging citizens to
fight the Feds. I realized for the first time how
these symbols of Olema's football, the flag and Dixie and

(40:09):
even Hotty Toddy were once used as weapons. How for
a third of my fellow Mississippians these images bring nothing
but fear. Part of me wish that I didn't know
any of that, and that's a scary idea. But I
did know, and now I had an answer to a
question I first asked myself in the library, what is

(40:30):
the cost of knowing? A statue? And James Mary This
honor stands on campus now, not too far from the
Walk of Champions. There's a quote on it. Yes, Mississippi was,
but Mississippi is. That seems about right. I'm at my

(41:02):
first ole Miss football game since finishing reporting the story
and kick off is close. I look up at the
south end zone and seeing gigantic letters nineteen sixty two
National champions. It seems that some obscure pole voted the
Rebels first. I mean, I read all of the local
coverage of that season and there was no mention of

(41:22):
a national title. But there it is on the stadium
and huge letters. There's such a blurry line between fact
and fiction about nineteen sixty two that nobody seems to
mind that the university has rewritten history and enormous letters
on the side of its football stadium. Not only do
we not like to talk about the past, we actually
like to rearrange it to fit with our own ideas

(41:44):
of what should have happened. And this strikes me obviously,
is incredibly dangerous. If we don't look at our flaws
and culpability and learn from them, we seem doom. The
truth is that the nineteen sixty two team was good,
really good, especially considering the obstacles, but that year USC
was better. The sign also brings me to the final question,

(42:08):
what is the cost of not knowing? Most students here
have no idea what really happened that night? In front
of the Lyceum. A lot of local contemporary histories call
it a riot, and it wasn't. It was an insurrection.
Those students know what I knew, brushstrokes and a few
comfortable anecdotes. Most believe what their parents believe. It's the

(42:30):
reason the Daily Mississippian was the only daily student newspaper
in America to endorse John McCain over Barack Obama. Thoughts
are handed down like monogram cufflinks or an engrave shotgun.
I'm sitting in my seats and the band starts playing Dixie,
and the moment is coming one that makes me cringe

(42:51):
for the black students who have to hear it, and
for the white ones who have no idea what they're
actually saying. The song speeds up near the end, and
the crowd shakes once more. I don't know when this
began or why, but as it finishes, many of the students,
some of them the grandchildren of those here in the
long Fall of nineteen sixty two, yell in Unison, the

(43:15):
South will rise again. The Cost of These Dreams is
from I Heart Media, Graphic Audio, and Right Thompson. This

(43:39):
series is produced by Goat Rodeo. In and Right and
Megan Nadolski are the lead producers. This episode is part
of the eight part series The Cost of These Dreams.
Find other episodes wherever you get your podcasts. If you
want to dive in deeper to write Thompson's The Cost
of These Dreams, access the full audio book wherever you

(44:00):
get your audio books. Discover other works by Wright Thompson,
including his latest book, Pappy Land, wherever books are sold.
From the Goat Rodeo team. Production assistants from Rebecca Sidel,
Isabel Kirby mc gowan, Hamsashi Too, Maxwell Johnston and Carroshillen.
Music by Ian N. Wright, Our Deep Thanks to Wright Thompson,

(44:23):
Caitlin Riley and John Weiss. Thanks for listening.