Eyewitness Account of the 1962 Ole Miss Riot: Diary of a Riot

By Donna Judd

In 1962 I was a 17-year-old freshman at Ole Miss, arriving the same year 29-year-old Air Force veteran James Meredith became the first Black to enroll at the University of Mississippi since Reconstruction. 


Ole Miss welcomed me with a small political science scholarship. Meredith was “welcomed” with violence meant to preserve the “Southern way of life,” including segregated schools. The resulting riot left two dead and over 300 hospitalized. 


I kept a daily journal during my college years.The following excerpts cover the night of the riot and the following day.

September 30, 1962


Dear God, I’ve never been through a day like today! It all started at 4:30 when eight trucks of federal marshals with helmets, vests, tear gas canisters and guns drove up in front of the Lyceum building. I’d been lying on my bed studying but heard the rumbling trucks. I ran out. Things were fairly quiet until 6:30 (only yells, cursing, and rebel flags). 400 marshals surrounded the building. Mississippi guardsmen were mostly just standing there. I did not check out of the dorm, but was not caught.


About 7:30 a photographer was about five feet from me. He said something, supposedly calling us “white trash,” and suddenly everyone was yelling, “Kill him!” and crashing towards the photographer. Guys kicked him, grabbed his camera and smashed it! I almost got run over when the crowd suddenly ran down in front of the “Y” building.


I also ran and stood on top of a car. There in the dark with spotlights on I saw students wildly rocking a car with photographers inside. They broke a car window with a bat. The woman alone in the back seat screamed hysterically, pressed her hands against the window and it seemed like she was staring right into my eyes! She thought she might be killed. So scary!


Sam and I ran when they started taking pictures. A photographer’s station wagon was ruined, all the windows smashed in, windshield wipers torn off, hubcaps taken off and the side of the car smashed with an ax. A guy in front of me tried to start a fire inside the car . 


Guys started throwing glass bottles, rocks and nails at the federal marshals. They threw lit toilet-paper rolls, cigarette butts and a burning newspaper on the army trucks. A marshal was hit by a thrown brick. 


Suddenly the marshals started shooting tear gas at us! I ran into the Grove, afraid I would be trampled! A Confederate flag was raised on the flagpole and everyone started yelling. 


Suddenly the marshals started firing tear gas bombs at us again. I ran for the nearest tree, so I wouldn’t be run over. Then I realized the marshals had not stopped. They were running after us and shooting right by me! I was really scared and took off for the “Y’ building with bombs hitting all around me. The crowd swarmed into the “Y.” My eyes were red and burning and my throat hurt. 


Photographers and reporters were lined up at the one phone-all red eyed and serious- needing to call in their breaking news. About 75 students crowded around the TV where Kennedy was assuring the nation that the Ole Miss Crisis would be settled peacefully-ha!


All the smoke made it almost impossible to see outside. I saw a student get dragged off the ground by three marshals. I stayed in the ‘Y’ with Gary, Jack, Tex, and Harley. Harley hugged me and wiped my eyes. 


Outside, we heard part of a speech by General Walker (a radical leader of John Birch Society who ran for governor of Texas.) where he encouraged the traitors to continue their ‘‘protest” including killing marshals!

A British correspondent was shot in the back and killed.(The victim was actually a French correspondent, Paul Girard, who was shot in the back by someone standing only a foot behind him.) I started crying! Some lady started screaming and said we should kill Meredith and Kennedy. 


I felt sick from no supper, the tear gas and everything that had happened. Agitators with bricks and guns knocked over the road barricades and led the mob- most of them from outside the area. I was standing by a couple of cars with Alabama license plates when the owners opened their trunks and handed rifles out to any boy who would take one. Scary!


A boy passed slowly by me in a car with only underpants on. He had been shot in the back and was on his way to the hospital. 


Finally I went back to the dorm; tear gas was in all the windows. Horrible stuff!
Everyone was leaving to stay in Oxford, Batesville, or sorority houses away from the rioting. Those of us with nowhere to go dragged our mattresses downstairs and are sleeping together on the lobby floor.


I tried to call home many times. All the lines were busy.


Latest TV report says, “two dead, a correspondent and a 23-yr-old-Oxford boy killed by a gunshot to his forehead. 


Meredith is now safely staying in a men's dorm with marshals fifteen-deep guarding the area. It is 1:10 am and I can still hear tear gas bombs going off outside and people shouting. I feel sick. Trying  to go to sleep now. 


Latest report- a car on fire. One boy was shot in the head. 11,000 army troops heading in from Georgia to Ole Miss. About 1,000 Mississippi State boys are here rioting.


I’ve heard of African mobs and prison mobs going berserk, but now I’m seeing and hearing it happen. 


2:00 am. Have a terrible headache.
 
October 1, 1962 


What can I say? I’ve seen a hate -filled mob in action, seen the need for respecting law and order, seen the reputation of a school ruined, seen prejudice, seen that neither national or state officials  are telling the complete truth or are completely right. In one night!


Walked out to breakfast at 7:30, but never made it. Instead choked on tear gas while I stared at four burnt, totally-ruined cars. One was Professor Stewart’s- awful! Cement benches all over the campus were smashed, a tennis net was wrapped around trees and across roads, plus rocks, benches, and boards had been used by students to block the streets. Lights and lamps were broken, glass, tear gas containers, and newspapers scattered all over the campus.


In the cafeteria, we were served with paper plates, cups and plastic knives so that glasses and knives could not be used as weapons. Had to sign into the dorm by 7pm,  not the usual 11:00pm. Marshals are arresting all students out after 7pm. Over 7,000 army and national guardsmen are on campus-a few were Negroes. 


No one could get on or off campus without an I.D. Card. The campus was fairly quiet but there was fighting on Oxford’s town square. Saw that on TV, throwing rocks -answering with tear gas- more of the damn stuff. I’m so sick of having streaming, bloodshot, burning eyes, a bitter taste in my mouth, and sneezing and coughing so much that I think I could die.


I went into my 8:00 am French class crying away. Only eight of the 22 students showed up. Then I had a 9:00 history class in Connor Hall -center of where the tear gas was- horrible. The prof. lectured like I have never heard before on “the horror of last night.” He was almost crying-visibly upset. We were a “faceless mob full of hate”  who lacked Christian ideals etc. Ruined the name of Ole Miss, Mississippi, the South, and the nation. Helped Communism. 


Campus looks like a battlefield, which it was. Of the usual 98 girls in my dorm, 27 are here tonight- all the others have gone home until the trouble clears. Called home after trying to get a long-distance operator for seven hours! Talked to everyone. Mom was shocked that I was involved in everything. Pop said to be calm and careful.


All my teachers commended those of us who had come to class today- glad I went,  although my eyes were killing me. It is impossible to study because my eyes hurt too much when I read.


Saw Meredith today ! He was getting into a car with five armed, plain-clothed men, after having been to class. 


Now at 10:30 pm all is quiet outside, with a slight rain.


Please, no more killings.
 
Epilogue 


James Meredith, the grandson of a slave on his father's side, is one of 10 children. At a time when the average Mississippi Negro had a third grade education, Meredith joined the Air Force, put himself through then Black- only Jackson State and graduated from Ole Miss on August 18,1963. 


Today 12.4% of the Ole Miss student body is Black.  A person with courage and determination can do amazing things.

Donna Judd, Guest Author

Donna Judd taught “inside the hormonal war zone” (junior high) for 34 years.
She loves traveling (to 82 countries), tennis and photography.