Originally published at: 60 Years Ago, a Civil Rights Icon Was Shot. A Flood of Now-Familiar Conspiracy Theories Followed.
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation. On June 6, 1966, on a stretch of Highway 51 just south of Hernando, Mississippi, a portly, middle-aged white man named Aubrey Norvell stepped out of a gully, lifted his shotgun and fired three shots at James…
What, exactly, does the fact that the shooter was “portly” have to do with anything? In what way is the man’s weight even remotely relevant here?
Meredith went through an interesting political trajectory after the shooting. Not unlike a Clarance Thomas or Eldridge Cleaver.
From the African American registry.
Meredith joined the Republican Party and made several attempts to be elected to Congress. He became increasingly conservative and, in 1988, accused liberal whites of being “the greatest enemy” of Blacks. He also opposed economic sanctions against South Africa and helped make Martin Luther King’s birthday a national holiday.
In 1997, Meredith presented his papers to the University of Mississippi, where the Special Collections branch of the J.D. Williams Library maintains them. A highly independent man, Meredith has been identified as an individual American citizen who demanded and received the constitutional rights held by any American, not as a participant in the American civil rights movement.
There have been tensions between him and the leaders of major organizations of the movement. When interviewed in 2002, the 40th anniversary of his enrollment at the University of Mississippi, Meredith said, “Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind.”
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