Part 7/16:
Similarly, President John F. Kennedy’s decision to send approximately 31,000 soldiers to the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) to enforce the admission of James Meredith, the first Black student to desegregate the university, is portrayed as an overkill justified by the federal law and judicial mandate. Kennedy’s use of overwhelming military force—tanks, machine guns, and troops—met with both criticism and approval, still rooted in the principle that federal law must be upheld against state resistance.