James Meredith

“Liberal whites are the greatest enemy of African Americans.”

“Do you know how big of an insult that is to me - to say that I had to be brave to confront some ignorant white folks?”

“I've always found the rhetoric of mainstream civil rights leaders and organizations to be far too timid, accommodationist, and gradualist. It always seemed to me that they behaved like meek...”

“Integration is the biggest con job ever pulled on any group of people, any nationality in the world. It was a plot by white liberals to gain black political power for themselves and their wi...”

“The real problem in Mississippi is almost a complete moral breakdown. In order to move Mississippi from the bottom to the top, all we have to do is just get people to do a little more what t...”

“I had developed a specifically calculated plan to break the system of white supremacy. My theory was that since Mississippi was the place, this was the ultimate: Mississippi was the place yo...”

“I chose as my target the University of Mississippi, which in 1960 was the holiest temple of white supremacy in America, next to the U.S. Capitol and the White House, both of which were under...”

“It is an insult for me to have been alive through the times you are calling the so-called civil rights movement. I don't celebrate my humiliations and my insults.”

“Nothing has been more detrimental to me than to be considered a symbol, because I never stood for any of that... The civil rights movement thought they would do me harm over the years by dis...”

“Have you ever heard of Irish, Poles, Germans, Italians and Jews being integrated? They go anywhere and just enjoy their rights. Why call it integration when black folks do the same thing? It...”

“I considered myself engaged in a war from Day One. And my objective was to force the federal government - the Kennedy administration at that time - into a position where they would have to u...”

“I was taught to believe that the most dishonorable thing a Meredith could do was work in a white woman's kitchen and take care of a white man's child. I knew I would starve to death rather t...”

“'Blacks were too scared to do anything, but they came out to greet James Meredith': That would have been the story in the evening news if I hadn't gotten myself shot. I got shot, and that al...”

“Do you know who the real hypocrite is? It's the federal government and the Justice Department. It's a fraud; it's a lie. They have no interest in the education of black children. They are on...”

“My answer to the racial problem in America is to not deal with it at all. The founding fathers dealt with it when they made the Constitution.”

“My great-grandfather was the last ruler of the Choctaw Nation, and from birth, I was taught that my role was to restore the power and the glory to my bloodline.”

“If black people use their resources properly, they can become as competitive as any group in society - take control of our neighborhoods, our businesses, our schools, including our teachers....”

“My statue at Ole Miss is a false idol. And it wasn't put there for my benefit. It was put there for Ole Miss and Mississippi.”

“Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind.”

“My momma was slick as greased lightning. She knew how to get anybody and everybody to do whatever she wanted 'em to do.”