Ole Miss After the Crisis

Katie Hughes

Jour 271

October 4, 2012

Ole Miss after the Crisis

Word Count: 352

  

            UNIVERSITY, Miss.—Life on campus at Ole Miss has dramatically changed according to several campus figures, which spoke on Thursday at the university about the school’s racial improvements since 1962.

Former Ole Miss student and now a distinguished member of administration, Donald Cole, captivated the audience at the Overby Center by sharing his experience as an African-American student at Ole Miss in the late 1960’s.

            It did not take long before Cole realized that Ole Miss was not as welcoming or safe for African-American students as he thought it would be. 

It was 1968, Cole’s freshman year, when a group of colored students including him, began to take action on their unpleasant campus experience.

“It was natural for us to protest here,” said Cole.

 Trying to drive the university into becoming completely integrated by requesting black professors and black athletes did not end well for Cole, as he was expelled two years later for protesting. 

During his time of absence, colored fraternities and sororities were welcomed on campus, the start of the black studies program was in progress, and the Ole Miss football team became integrated.

“Sports have played such an important role in the integration of America,” Cole said.

With the help and recommendation from the first black administrator at Ole Miss, Lucius Williams, Cole was readmitted to the university in 1976.

An Ole Miss professor from 1962, Gerald Walton, said that the idea of hiring African-American faculty members was never considered at the time.

“It is true we have a lot to be guilty of,” said Walton.

 “The best we can do is to go and sin no more.”

Walton trusts that the University of Mississippi has made some significant stride.

Many African-American students have held leadership roles since James Meredith’s time, including the current homecoming queen, Courtney Pearson, and the ASB president, Kim Dandridge. The opportunities are endless for colored people on campus and around the town of Oxford, MS.

“I believe that Ole Miss has come a long way over the years in terms of equality for all people,” said Amber Goodwin, a current student of Ole Miss.