Sept. 24, 1962 - Governor Ross R. Barnett ordered today the imprisonment of any Federal official who sought to arrest or fine Mississippi officials for defying court desegregation decrees. The Governor issued the order before state education officials agreed to comply with a Federal court ruling and admit a Negro, James H. Meredith, to the University of Mississippi. The Governor’s order, coupled with his apparent intention to carry it out, threatened to bring on the most serious Federal-state controversy since the Civil War. In the Little Rock, Ark., dispute in 1957, Gov. Orval E. Faubus, in defiance of the Federal court, called out National Guardsmen and blocked 9 Negroes from attending Central High School. But even he did not risk the open clash with Federal authority that would result from the seizure of a U.S. official.
Comments