When James Meredith was in his late 20s, he decided he wanted to attend the University of Mississippi.

But admission to Ole Miss was more than filling out an application and having good grades – it was 1962, and Meredith was black.

Admission meant a lawsuit that went all the way to the Supreme Court, and federal troops protected Meredith until he graduated.

This is one of the experiences Meredith, now 67 years old and one of the most prominent civil rights figures in the nation, will speak about as part of the university’s Forum series and Black History Month.

“He is the symbol of the stubborn overcoming of segregation, ” said Selika Ducksworth-Lawton, associate professor of history. She also said officials at Ole Miss tried “every trick in the book to keep him out.”

Students also went to great lengths to not let him in. It was after a night of riots at the university in which two people were killed that Meredith finally was admitted.

Student Senator Andy Oettinger, a member of the Forum committee, said Meredith is a living piece of history from the civil rights movement, and the chance to hear him speak could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Meredith is known for his stand against violence, and is quite mainstream in many of his beliefs, said Ducksworth-Lawton, who heard Meredith speak when she was a little girl in Louisiana.

“He’s not one who will advocate free love and hippies,” she said, adding that Meredith is an Air Force veteran. “He will be a little more conservative on some social issues than people will expect.”

It was a lonely existence for Meredith to be the only black student at Ole Miss, a university twice the size of UW-Eau Claire, Ducksworth-Lawton said.

She said he had to deal with insults hurled in his face by segregationists and portrayals of him by Southern newspapers as the enemy who was causing violence on campus.

Meredith wrote “Three Years in Mississippi” in 1966, a book that recounted his experiences with racial integration. He then began the “March Against Fear,” a walk from Memphis, Tenn., to Jackson, Miss., to encourage people to vote and to conquer his fears by walking alone in the South.

A sniper shot Meredith in Mississippi, but he still made it to Jackson, where he marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil rights figures.

His experience on the march is something senior Angelica Hambrick, president of the Black/Latino Student Association, is excited to learn more about. She’s especially interested in how he could keep walking after suffering injuries from the shooting.

“Even though he was hurt, he wanted to walk for the cause,” Hambrick said.

Hambrick will attend a dinner Wednesday night with Meredith, and also plans on attending the Forum presentation.

Meredith also will be a part of activities on campus during the week open to students.

There will be a panel discussion on education and diversity from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday in Davies Theatre.

The program “The Hip-Hop Generation Meets History” will be at noon Thursday in The Cabin.

It will feature discussion about historical figures such as Harriet Tubman, Duke Ellington, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Mahalia Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The featured music will be by Sweet Honey in the Rock, The Sounds of Blackness, Tupac Shakur, KRS 1 and Public Enemy.