Fifty years ago — Oct. 1, 1962 — the first black student was admitted to the University of Mississippi, a bastion of the Old South.

The town of Oxford erupted. It took some 30,000 U.S. troops, federal marshals and national guardsmen to get James Meredith to class after a violent campus uprising. Two people were killed and more than 300 injured. Some historians say the integration of Ole Miss was the last battle of the Civil War.

It was a high-stakes showdown between President Kennedy and Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett.

“I’m a Mississippi segregationist and I am proud of it,” the governor declared.

Publicly, Barnett promised to block Meredith from the campus in Oxford, despite a federal court order. Privately, he was on the phone trying to strike a compromise with Kennedy.

While Barnett wanted to save face by defending Mississippi’s segregationist laws, the president told him he had a responsibility to uphold federal law.

“What I’d like to do is for this to work out in an amicable way,” Kennedy said to Barnett in a phone call. “We don’t want a lot of people down there getting hurt.”

More from Debbie Elliott, NPR

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