Ole Miss riot of 1962

In accordance with Barnett and Kennedy's plan, on Sunday evening, September 30, the day before the anticipated showdown, Meredith was flown to Oxford. He was quietly escorted by Mississippi Highway Patrol as he moved into a dorm room.

The federal agents assembled on campus, supported by the 70th Army Engineer Combat Battalion from Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

Responding to the federal presence, a crowd of a thousand, mostly students⁠—led by arch-conservative activist Edwin Walker⁠⁠⁠—quickly crowded onto campus. Four days earlier, Walker had said the following on radio:

Mississippi: It is time to move. We have talked, listened and been pushed around far too much by the anti-Christ Supreme Court! Rise . . . to a stand beside Governor Ross Barnett at Jackson, Mississippi! Now is the time to be heard! Thousands strong from every state in the Union! Rally to the cause of freedom! The Battle Cry of the Republic! Barnett yes! Castro no! Bring your flag, your tent, and your skillet. It's now or never! The time is when the President of the United States commits or uses any troops, federal or state, in Mississippi! The last time in such a situation I was on the wrong side. That was in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957-1958. This time—out of uniform—I am on the right side! I will be there![2]

As the scene grew more out of control, the highway patrol initially helped hold off the crowds but, despite Barnett's renewed commitment, police were withdrawn by State Senator George Yarbrough starting at about 7:25 p.m.[8][9] The student demonstration, joined by an increasing number of other agitators, started to break out into a full riot on the Oxford campus.

At 7:30 p.m., Barnett announced on the radio that Meredith had been brought to Mississippi by force. After signing his enrollment, Barnett said to the federal officers:

Gentlemen, you are trampling on the sovereignty of this great state and depriving it of every vestige of honor and respect as a member of the United States. You are destroying the Constitution of the United States. May God have mercy on your souls.[6]

The crowd swelled to about 3,000. As its behavior turned increasingly violent, the federal agents ran out of tear gas defending the officials in the Lyceum. President Kennedy reluctantly called in reinforcements in the middle of the night under the command of Brigadier General Charles Billingslea, Commanding general of the United States Army's 2nd Infantry Division. He ordered in U.S. Army military police from the 503rd, 716th, and 720th Military Police Battalions—which had previously been readied for deployment under cover of the nuclear war Exercise Spade Fork—the 2nd Battle Group, 2nd Infantry Division, the 31st Helicopter Company, and the federalized Mississippi National Guard. United States Navy medical personnel (physicians and hospital corpsmen) attached to the U.S. Naval Hospital in Millington, Tennessee as well as 101st Airborne Division communications and medical personnel were also sent to the university.

Before they arrived, white rioters roaming the campus discovered Meredith was in Baxter Hall and started to assault it. Early in the morning, as Gen. Billingslea's party entered the university gate, a white mob attacked his staff car and set it on fire. Billingslea, the Deputy Commanding General John Corley, and aide, Capt Harold Lyon, were trapped inside the burning car, but they forced the door open, then crawled 200 yards under gunfire from the mob to the University Lyceum Building. The Army did not return this fire.

To keep control, Gen. Billingslea established a series of escalating code words for issuing ammunition down to the platoons, a second for issuing it to squads, and the third for loading, none of which could take place without the General confirming the secret codes.

By the end, one-third of the federal agents, a total of 166 men, were injured in the melee, and 40 federal soldiers and Mississippi National Guardsmen were wounded.[10][7]

U.S. Army trucks loaded with steel-helmeted federal agents roll across the University of Mississippi campus on October 3, 1962.

Two civilians were murdered during the first night of the riots: French journalist Paul Guihard, on assignment for Agence France-Presse (AFP), who was found behind the Lyceum building with a gunshot wound to the back; and 23-year-old Ray Gunter, a white jukebox repairman who had visited the campus out of curiosity.[11][12] Gunter was found with a bullet wound in his forehead. Law enforcement officials described these as execution-style killings.[13]

Finally, on October 1, 1962, Meredith became the first African-American student to be enrolled at the University of Mississippi,[14] and attended his first class, in American History.[1] Meredith graduated from the university on August 18, 1963 with a degree in political science.[15] At that time, there were still hundreds of troops guarding him 24 hours a day although, in order to appease the local sensitivities, 4,000 Black soldiers were removed from the Federal troops under Robert Kennedy's secret orders.[16][7]

Governor Barnett was fined $10,000 and sentenced to jail for contempt. The charges were later dismissed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.[17]

Sports journalist Wright Thompson wrote an article "Ghosts of Mississippi" (2010),[6] that described the riot and the football team's season that year. It was adapted as a documentary film for the ESPN 30 for 30 series, entitled The Ghosts of Ole Miss (2012), about the 1962 football team's perfect season and the early violence in the fall over integration of the historic university.[18]

Several singers made songs about this event:[19][20]

• Bob Dylan wrote and sang about the events in his song "Oxford Town"
• Phil Ochs wrote "The Ballad of Oxford"[21]
• Gene Greenblath did "Talking Ole Miss"[22]
• The Chad Mitchell Trio did the song "Alma Mater"[23]