Rebels With a Cause

In the autumn of 1962, the Ole Miss “Rebels” [former politically incorrect nickname] football team was on its way to an undefeated season and capturing the national championship without the benefit of their own campus stadium. It was being occupied by federal troops who were there to make sure that James Meredith, the first African American student, could attend classes. All kinds of chaos surrounded his admission, beginning earlier in the state Capitol.

As a member of the Fourth Estate for my college newspaper, I had a press pass that got me admitted to the notable incident that took place in the Office of Education within the State Building in Jackson. Governor Ross Barnett had unlawfully declared himself the Registrar for the University and set up the confrontation for Meredith to register for admission through him. The press was gathered in the hallway leading to the office where the Governor stood in the doorway. Accompanied by two tall white guards from the U.S. Justice Department, the applicant approaches the Governor/Registar who inquires “Which one of you gentlemen is Mr. Meredith?” When the laughter subsided, the whole incident was redone on a more serious level to benefit the television cameras trying to capture the gravity of the moment.

Short of statue to begin with, James Meredith was the only black guy within miles. Ross Barnett was rather rotund and blustery and, some would argue, politically challenged. His gubernatorial campaign jingle was “Roll With Ross”, and his bumper sticker word was “Never!”. Everybody knew what that meant. Several weeks later he would appear at the Ole Miss and Houston football game at Memorial Stadium in Jackson and give his three-sentence speech over and over again in proper southern drawl: “I looove Mississippi. I looove her people. I looove and respect our heritage.” The crowd roared between each phrase, and we all knew it had something to do with “Never!”

On the night of September 30, 1962, riots broke out on the University campus in Oxford, and the young Episcopal chaplain, Duncan Gray Jr., stood his ground right in the middle of the melee in trying to quell and calm the students involved. Duncan’s father became the Bishop of the Mississippi Diocese, as did Duncan and his son after him. The best portrait of him was a book by Baptist preacher, Will Campbell, entitled And Also with You: Duncan Gray and the American Dilemma.

Every other chapter juxtaposes the life of Duncan Gray, Jr. and the Mississippi Greys, that group of Ole Miss students who fought to defend the Lost Cause of the Confederacy until all of them had given the last full measure of their devotion at the Battle of Gettysburg. Campbell wanted us to see that the passions that drove them were part and parcel of Duncan’s passions for racial justice. The temperaments of the rioters on campus that autumn evening were also part of the same cloth.

The campus rebellion would be quelled. “Never!” would eventually yield to “Well, maybe.” Ross Barnett would end up in lower parts of Neverland. James Meredith would graduate from Ole Miss. Duncan would become the Bishop of Mississippi Episcopalians and Chancellor of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee.

When Will Campbell was writing his book, he stayed in the Sewanee Inn and interviewed the proprietor who had been there for years to get the lowdown on Bishop Gray. Her answer was the best line in the book: “Duncan Gray was the only man I’ve ever met who wasn’t up to something.”

Blessed are the unassuming for they shall become those peacemakers who show us we are all children of God.