First lady Michelle Obama assumed the roles of history professor, civil rights firebrand and fierce defender of her husband’s legacy Saturday as she urged Jackson State University graduates to “devote your life to finding ways to help others.”
In a spirited and often emotional address, Obama repeatedly referred to Mississippi’s history of racial oppression and its legislature’s continued resistance to progress, but she called upon the graduates to confront social injustice “with dignity, integrity and excellence.”
Obama opened with a bit of history about Jackson’s Veterans Memorial Stadium, where an estimated crowd of 35,000 had gathered to hear her. “For years it stood as a steel and concrete tribute to segregation because Jim Crow laws meant that only White teams and fans were allowed through these gates.”
She continued, “Back in 1962, during an Ole Miss football game, the stadium became the site of what was essentially a pro-Jim Crow rally with fans waving Confederate flags and singing a song called ‘Never, No Never’ to protest the admission of an African-American student to their university.”
She explained that the incident “was just one small moment in a struggle for civil rights that inflamed the country but burned hottest right here in Mississippi,” adding that the murders of Emmett Till, Medgar Evers and the Freedom Riders were more significant.
She then turned to the progress that has occurred ― the fact that, after much resistance, two Black football teams, Grambling and Jackson states, played in the stadium in 1967, opening it up to integration. She also noted that Jackson State and then-coach Rod Paige were instrumental in that change. Paige later became the first African-American U.S. Secretary of Education.
“We know that there will always be challenges and obstacles, but we also know that what we’re dealing with today is nothing compared to the violence, hatred and discrimination that folks faced decades ago,” she said.
