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Somberly, the President issued an executive order directing the Secretary of Defense to "take all appropriate steps" to enforce the court orders and calling the Mississippi units of the National Guard into "active military service."
But the following morning, Barnett called the White House again. He now seemed to be willing to cooperate. He urged the President to bring Meredith in that day, Sunday; there were, he said, indications that segregationist gangs were planning to converge on Oxford on Monday. As White House officials tell it, Barnett promised that if U.S. marshals escorted Meredith onto the campus on Sunday, the state police would help maintain order. Accepting these assurances, the White House decided to put Meredith onto the campus that afternoon, even before the President delivered his speech.
Through the West Gate. Late that afternoon, the first wave of C-47 transports airlifting marshals from Memphis set down at the Oxford airport. Wearing white helmets and orange riot vests stuffed with tear-gas canisters, 167 marshals loaded into waiting Army trucks and chugged off to the campus half a mile away. At 5 p.m.—it was then 7 p.m. in Washington —marshals surrounded the Lyceum, the old, red brick administration building where Meredith was to register.
Shortly afterward, Meredith arrived from Memphis aboard a twin-engined U.S. border patrol plane, climbed into a border patrol automobile, and rode to the campus, escorted by a caravan of marshals with black, stubby tear-gas guns in their hands. The cavalcade swept onto the campus through the little-used West Gate and deposited Meredith at Baxter Hall with a guard of 24 marshals.
The time neared for the President to go on TV—7:30 p.m. E.D.T.—but he sent word to the networks that he was going to postpone the speech until 10 p.m. He wanted to wait and see whether
Barnett was going to keep his promises. When the President finally did go on camera, he was unsure about what was happening in Mississippi, and his uncertainty showed in his speech. But even if Kennedy had been at his most eloquent, it was too late to do any good. In a note of self-congratulation, he told his audience that "thus far" the Government had not used military force. But down in Mississippi, a long night's violence had already erupted.
A Length of Pipe. The crowd in front of the Lyceum had grown bigger and uglier. First it turned on newsmen in a face-punching, camera-smashing frenzy. Then up rolled the 60-man local National Guard unit. It was Troop E of the Second Reconnaissance Squadron of the 108th Armored Cavalry Division, under the command of Captain Murry C. Falkner, nephew of Oxford's late Novelist William Faulkner.
Enraged by the sight of Mississippi men arriving to aid the federal marshals, a man tried to set fire to a truck with a gasoline-soaked rag. Eggs came flying toward the marshals, then rocks. Out of the gathering darkness hurtled a length of metal pipe. It struck a marshal on the side of the helmet, stunning him. That was enough. "Let 'em have it!" yelled Chief Marshal James McShane. "Gas!" Tear-gas guns went off with metallic whoomps, filling the air with blinding mist. The crowd screamed and retreated. But the battle had only begun.