While reading an article
from the Commercial Appeal about James Meredith, I couldn’t help but think that
the author, Jody Callahan, really could benefit from some of our discussions in
class, especially about what constitutes activism. http://www.commercialappeal.com/story/news/local/2017/02/26/james-meredith-honored-new-sardis-celebration/98349918/
The article reports on New
Sardis Baptist Church’s honoring of James Meredith, the first black man to
attend the University of Mississippi, despite the state's furious efforts.
It’s all well and good,
except that Callahan seems to completely separate the idea of dismantling the
institution of White Supremacy and being part of the Civil Rights Movement. To
Callahan, it’s not possible for Meredith to be an activist and also exist
separately from the Civil Rights Movement. As part of the evidence, Callahan
writes that Meredith considers himself to be part of the Republican party, and
he also has worked for Senator Jesse Helms, who was apparently a
segregationist. On one hand, I can understand why this evidence would be
conflicting with Meredith's goals, but we know that based on necessity, these details are not
entirely surprising. In the article, Meredith is quoted: “The whole concept of
Civil Rights is an insult to citizenship. My goal is to destroy the subject of
White Supremacy.”
In this case, it seems like
Meredith is trying to dismantle the system of White Supremacy from the inside. This goes along with a few of the readings we’ve
had lately in class as well, especially the idea that the question of civil
rights does not get to the heart of the issue: human rights. Callahan’s writing
forces the assumption that Meredith could not possibly be doing any activist work
of note because he does not consider himself to be part of the movement.
It’s
another installment to our question: what is activism?
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