James Meredith's Three Years in Mississippi Inscribed to Jack Greenberg, Director of NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Who Helped Argue Meredith's Case

Signed Book, to Jack and Sema Greenberg, May 30, 1966. Three Years in Mississippi. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966. 8 + 328 pp., 6 x 9.25 in. In the heartfelt inscription to his memoir Three Years in Mississippi, James Meredith thanks Jack Greenberg and his wife Sema for their "view of the world." Greenberg was the director of the Legal Defense and Educational Fund of the NAACP and helped argue Meredith's cause in cases in federal court. The courts ultimately ordered the all-white University of Mississippi to admit Meredith in 1962. Excerpt"To Jack & Sema,I want to present this book to you as part payment for all that you have done and are doing to make this world a better place in which to live.In many many ways my life would not have been the same if there had not been a Jack and Sema Greenberg and your view of the world had not been as it is.You are truly wonderful people and I want to thank you for it.Sincerely yours,JH Meredith30 May 1966."Historical BackgroundIn 1961, after twice nearly a decade in the Air Force and two years at Jackson State University, Meredith applied to the University of Mississippi. Twice rejected due to his race, he sued. The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in his favor, and the Supreme Court upheld the ruling in Meredith v, Fair. When Governor Ross Barnett and the legislature resisted, the Court of Appeals found the governor and lieutenant governor in contempt, ordered their arrest, and imposed fines. The governor reluctantly backed down after a series of phone calls with U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy.Kennedy ordered U.S. marshals, federal border patrol, and prison officers to provide security and accompany Meredith to the University. Two citizens were killed in riots, but on October 1, 1962, Meredith became the first African American student enrolled in the University of Mississippi. Despite significant harassment while there, Meredith graduated on August 18, 1963 with a degree in political science.His memoir,Three Years in Mississippi, published only three years later, describes his struggle to break down racial barriers and attend the University in one of the most conservative states in America.James Howard Meredith (b. 1933) was born in Mississippi of African American, Native American, English Canadian, and Scottish ancestry. He attended schools in Mississippi through the eleventh grade but graduated from high school in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1951. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and served from 1951 to 1960. He then attended Jackson State University for two years. After winning his legal challenges to gain admission to the University of Mississippi, Meredith graduated in August 1963. He continued his education in Nigeria, returned to the United States in 1965. In the three-week March Against Fear in June 1966 to encourage black voter registration, Meredith was shot and wounded by a white man, but after a brief recovery he rejoined the march. He graduated from Columbia University with a law degree in 1968. In 1972, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate from Mississippi as a Republican. From 1989 to 1991, he served as a domestic adviser to Senator Jesse Helms, an avowed segregationist, drawing criticism from the civil rights community.Jack Greenberg(1924-2016) was born into an immigrant Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York. During World War II, he served in the Navy in the Pacific theater. He graduated from Columbia College in 1945 and Columbia Law School in 1948. The following year, he became the only white legal counselor for the Legal Defense and Educational Fund of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1950, he married Sema Ann Tanzer (1927-2013); they had four children before divorcing in 1970, after which he married Deborah Cole.In 1954, as co-counsel with Thurgood Marshall, Greenberg argued Brown v. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1961, when Marshall was appointed by P. (See website for full description). …