Shot Wounds Negro Leading March

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31080, 8 June 1966, Page 17

Shot Wounds Negro Leading March

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) MEMPHIS (Tennessee), June 7. A Negro leader, James Meredith, shot in the back by a white gunman as he began a civil rights march through Mississippi, was in a satisfactory condition in hospital in Memphis today.

He had been hit twice by blasts from a shotgun and rushed bleeding to hospital. Doctors said later: “Meredith’s condition is satisfactory. He suffered multiple superficial wounds.”

In 1962, Mr Meredith broke the colour bar at the University of Mississippi when he was the first Negro to enrol there. Rioting accompanied his arrival and two people were killed.

Mr Meredith telephoned his New York home last night and told his wife: “Except for being a little stiff, I feel as well as I ever did . . . theyhaven’t got all the buckshot out yet."

Police announced tnat Aubrey James Morvell, a 41-year-old white man from Memphis had admitted firing at Meredith. He was charged with assault with intent to mur-

der, said United Press International.

American leaders expressed indignation at the attack. President Johnson branded the shooting as “an awful act of violence,” and Vice-Presi-dent Hubert Humphrey said it “brings shame upon our entire nation.” Head high, Mr Meredith had ignored jeers and obscenities from carloads of whites driving past brandishing the confederate flag of Southern rebels during the American Civil War, as he crossed the Tennessee border into his home state of Mississipi. A local reporter described how he saw a man dressed in a white shirt, and wearing sunglasses, standing with a shotgun about 30ft from the line of marchers ready to fire. “I saw James Meredith shove one of the marchers to the ground, then the first blast was heard ....

“Meredith was lying face down ... his right sleeve was

covered with blood and he seemed to be bleeding about the head.” Witnesses -said that when the first shot rang out Mr Meredith shouted “Oh, my God” and fell at the roadside. When the other blasts were fired, he dragged himself across to the opposite side of the road where he lay until an ambulance arrived. His companions ran for cover. Before setting out on the march, Mr Meredith, a lawyer, said: “We want to tear down the fear that grips the Negroes

of Mississippi .... to encourage the 450,000 Negroes remaining unregistered (to vote) in Mississippi.” Dr. Martin Luther King, the Negro civil rights leader, said several members of his organisation would go to Mississippi today to carry on Mr Meredith’s campaign for Negro voter registration. They will visit Mr Meredith in the John Gaston Hospital this morning. Dr. King said he was going to Mississippi from Atlanta to urge Negroes to vote in tomorrow’s primary election and not to be intimidated by the assault on Mr Meredith, the Associated Press reported.