Honoring James Meredith on D-Day

At Hernando, Mississippi - 30 miles from his starting point - he saw an armed man aim at him and dived to the ground, but he was shot three times. Bleeding from the head, shoulder and leg he shouted: "Oh my God."

As thousands gather on Omaha Beach at the site of the D-Day invasion to honor those who fought and died and those who survived,  I would like to honor James Meredith, who on this day 48 years ago survived being shot during a march against fear in Mississippi.

 On June 5, 1966, equipped with only a helmet and walking stick, James Meredith began a 220-mile March Against Fear from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi. Mr. Meredith, an activist who had integrated the University of Mississippi four years earlier, organized the one-man march to encourage African Americans in Mississippi to register to vote and to challenge the culture of fear perpetuated by white supremacists in the state.

After attending local segregated schools and graduating from high school, Meredith enlisted in the United States Air Force. He served from 1951 to 1960.  Here part of what President Obama said at today's ceremony in France about those who served on D-Day.

They left home barely more than boys and returned home heroes. But to their great credit, that is not how this generation carried itself. After the war, some put away their medals, kept humble about their service, and moved on. Some, carrying shrapnel and scars, found that they couldn't. Many, like my grandfather, who served in Patton's Army, lived a quiet life, trading one uniform and set of responsibilities for another -- teacher, doctor, engineer, Dad. Our country made sure millions of them earned a college education, opening opportunity on an unprecedented scale. They married those sweethearts and bought new homes and raised families and built businesses, lifting up the greatest middle class the world has ever known. And through it all, they were inspired, I suspect, by memories of fallen brothers -- memories that drove them to live their lives each day as best they possibly could.

Whenever the world makes you cynical -- stop and think of these men.

Call me cynical, but men like James Meredith came home and had to fight for  basic equal, civil, and human rights.

 When blacks came home after the war, whites were prepared to "put them back in their place." Henry Murphy said that when he returned to the states and called his father in Mississippi, his father warned him not to come home with his uniform on. "He said that the police was beating black soldiers and searching them.

So on this day I choose to remember James Meredith and all the other blacks who came home from the war to fight another war.