State officials, including Governor Ross Barnett, attempted to defy the Supreme Court decision, provoking a constitutional crisis between the state of Mississippi and the federal government. When Meredith arrived at the school’s Oxford, Mississippi campus under the protection of federal forces, including U.S. marshals, a mob of more than 2,000 students and others formed to block his way. Two people were killed and many others injured in the ensuing chaos, forcing Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to send federal marshals and later federalized National Guardsmen, in what essentially amounted to a military occupation of some 31,000 federal troops.
Despite the fierce resistance, Meredith registered as the first African-American student at Ole Miss on October 1, 1962. His brief tenure at the school lasted less time than the legal battle it took to get there: He graduated the following year, and later wrote a memoir about the entire experience entitled “Three Years in Mississippi” (1966).