I considered myself engaged in a war from Day One. And my objective was to force the federal government - the Kennedy administration at that time - into a position where they would have to use the United States military force to enforce my rights as a citizen.

Political career
In 1967 while living and studying in New York Meredith decided to run as a Republican against the incumbent Adam Clayton Powell Jr. James Howard Meredith (born June 25 1933) is an American civil rights movement figure a writer and a political adviser. Meredith said "The Republican Party [of New York] made me an offer: full support in every way everything.

In 1962 he was the first African American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi an event that was a flashpoint in the American civil rights movement. Kennedy's inaugural address Meredith decided to exercise his constitutional rights and apply to the University of Mississippi. Motivated by President John F.