Shirley Payne believes Americans should take a fresh look at the nationally televised speech that President John F. Kennedy delivered Sept. 30, 1962, as he announced he was “federalizing” a unit of the state National Guard to ensure that James Meredith, a military veteran, was enrolled as the first Black student at the University of Mississippi.
Payne, who practices law in the Jackson area with her husband, Dennis Horn, said the speech should be read and admired against the political rancor occurring today, especially over President Donald Trump’s apparent glee in sending National Guard troops to American cities.
She said Kennedy took a different approach – an almost apologetic approach – as he nationalized a Mississippi unit of the National Guard to try to ensure order as Meredith enrolled.
By happenstance, Payne and her longtime friend, Stephen Sheppard, a former St. Mary’s University Law School dean and now professor at the school in San Antonio, have a copy of Kennedy’s speech draft and they are looking for ways to share it with other Americans, particularly college students.
“We want to contrast how it was handled to deploy troops (in America) before and how so much importance was placed on the courts and the rule of law,” Payne said recently.
Quite simply, Payne believes it is important to contrast that seminal event in Mississippi and indeed American history with what is occurring now.
Sheppard acquired through an auction the draft of the speech Kennedy delivered on national TV a little more than 63 years ago.
The first page that was part of the draft of the speech President John F. Kennedy delivered announcing the deployment of National Guard to ensure James Meredith was allowed to enroll as the first Black student at the University of Mississippi.The draft contained on the first page the schedule of events as the federal government prepared to ensure Meredith’s enrollment. The front page also contains the prominent signature of Meredith, an “OK,” presumably scrolled by Kennedy, a doodle drawing and then six typewritten pages of a draft that eventually became the speech Kennedy delivered to the nation.
Payne said she and Sheppard have been longtime friends from when he worked as a clerk for Mississippi federal judges appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan – E. Grady Jolly and William Barbour – and she was an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Payne said they believe the draft is a history lesson that provides messages for Americans today.
In 1962 Kennedy said, “Our nation is founded on the principle that observance of the law is the eternal safeguard of liberty and defiance of the law is the surest road to tyranny. The law which we obey includes the final rulings of the courts, as well as the enactments of our legislative bodies. Even among law-abiding men few laws are universally loved, but they are uniformly respected and not resisted.
He continued, “Americans are free, in short, to disagree with the law but not to disobey it. For in a government of laws and not of men, no man, however prominent or powerful, and no mob however unruly or boisterous, is entitled to defy a court of law. If this country should ever reach the point where any man or group of men by force or threat of force could long defy the commands of court and our Constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt, no judge would be sure of his writ and no citizen would be safe from his neighbors.”
In terms of activating the National Guard, Kennedy said, “I deeply regret the fact that any action by the executive branch was necessary in this case, but all other avenues and alternatives, including persuasion and conciliation, had been tried and exhausted.”
Through it all, Kennedy tried to strike a conciliatory tone with Ole Miss and the state.
“You have a great tradition to uphold, a tradition of honor and courage won on the field of battle (by Ole Miss graduates) and on the gridiron as well as the university campus,” he said. “You have a new opportunity to show that you are men of patriotism and integrity.
“For the most effective means of upholding the law is not the state policeman or the marshals or the National Guard. It is you. It lies in your courage to accept those laws with which you disagree as well as those with which you agree. The eyes of the nation and of all the world are upon you and upon all of us, and the honor of your university and state are in the balance. I am certain that the great majority of the students will uphold that honor.”
Of course, Kennedy’s words only did so much. The historic enrollment led to riots and violence, resulting in two deaths and more than 300 injuries.
There were some, including many Mississippi politicians, who learned little from Kennedy’s words in 1962. Shirley Payne and Steve Sheppard hope Americans can learn from those words now.
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