You are not who you're supposed to be

It's hard for me to convey how excited I was to get the assignment. My boss at the Vicksburg Post told me to cover a speech by James Meredith. THE James Meredith. The one who integrated Ole Miss with the help of the National Guard. The one who got shot marching along a highway. One of a handful of civil rights legends where one merely must give a name or phrase: Rosa Parks, Montgomery Bus Boycott, King, Selma, Freedom Riders, the Little Rock Nine, and James Meredith.

Even though I grew up in Mississippi (and read my Mississippi History textbook cover-to-cover) and knew the basics of Meredith's story, I was surprised to know that he was still alive. More than that, he was out giving speeches. I idly wondered why I had never heard of him visiting during any Black History Month celebrations I attended in Tupelo and later, MSU. (N.B. There still isn't a significant biography of Meredith. If there's another significant American historical figure who's more ripe for the Robert Caro treatment, I don't know who he is.)

The address led me to a tiny Missionary Baptist church in outside of Vicksburg. I got there, expecting a crowd. Maybe 20 people ended up showing to hear him.

Meredith resembled what I imagined a civil rights hero to look like: tall, a proper amount of grey, alert and skeptical eyes, a deadly serious demeanor. The topic, the plight of the modern black youth, was also what I would expect to hear from a man who'd risked his life more than once to achieve equal rights in the eyes of the law.

Everything else about the speech surprised me.

His speech could've come out of the mouth of so many white people I've heard all my life. Single motherhood has ruined black families. Things were better generations ago. Black kids need to learn how to speak proper English and pull up their pants. Government programs, particularly welfare, have ill-served black people. (His message today is pretty much the same.)

Meredith's audience didn't take kindly to what he said. Respectful clapping gave way to stony silence. Being the only white person in the pews, I caught a few glances at me, followed by glares at Meredith. The expression seemed to be one given when a family member airs dirty laundry in mixed company. Are you forgetting yourself?

He said things that I'd heard from white people all my life. The difference was that these were people whose primary acquaintance with the black community was through alarmist newspaper headlines. As a headstrong, rebellious, liberal-minded teenager in a conservative town, I'd easily tuned out those opinions as so much stereotyping. You have no interest in actually helping black people. You're just pining for a time when black people could be ignored. 

Meredith could not be dismissed so easily.

****

One of the best pieces of advice I've heard came from Sid Salter, then the Clarion-Ledger's political columnist. When I was an intern at the C-L, he told me that the people he respected most where the ones who'd "gotten their hands dirty."

I thought I was doing that by taking a low-paying job covering six of the poorest counties in the country. I'd been in jails, chatted with felons, and had once been on stakeout the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics.

I had nothing on Meredith. I have nothing on Meredith.

I disagreed with him then. Now, after several years working in mostly poor, mostly minority communities, after years of getting my hands dirty, I still think his critique is off-target, that he mistakes symptoms for a disease.

But I could be wrong.

I keep questioning myself because any sacrifice of mine, any work that I've put in to make our society more just and equal, pales in comparison to what Meredith did, not just at Ole Miss, but in later years, too. His journey was never a sure thing. He really did risk his life before integrating Ole Miss, during the riots (two people were killed), and in subsequent marches and protests.

I can't just dismiss him. He's earned the right to his opinions in a way few in this world ever have. Moreover, he's earned the right to have those opinions considered, tested, and reconsidered. He didn't come across as an idealist or even particularly hopeful. His thoughts were borne of brutal experience.

****

Meredith, at a great personal cost, believes many things have ended up altering what his legacy could have been. That night in the Delta, he had definite ideas about what he wanted his legacy to be, but he had little interest in that being what people would assume it would be.

His message didn't influence much about my policy views. What I learned that evening was much more useful: that reputation, stereotype, appearance, and experience are all poor substitutes for actually going to the trouble to learn what a person thinks.

That wasn't Meredith's explicit or implicit message that night. However, that lesson has what's stayed with me these past several years. It, more than any other, has helped me battle the demons of racism, of stereotyping, of confusing what I see with what I know.

I hope he would approve. Of course, I have no way of knowing. I'd like to ask him, though.