Research Symposium

BIO

My name is Kieran Stenson and I am a Freshman FSU student from Palm Harbor, Florida. I am majoring in History, and hope to teach and complete further research in that field in the future. My research interests include local history, Eastern Europe, specifically Poland, and Public History. I am also involved on campus as Secretary and President-Elect of the History Club at FSU and an InternFSU internship with Special Collections in Strozier Library.

Florida State University Student Responses to the Ole Miss Riot of 1962

Abstract

To develop a better understanding of contemporary 20th century attitudes towards race and integration among students at Florida State University (FSU), I investigated articles concerning the 1962 University of Mississippi riots from the FSU student newspaper, the Florida Flambeau. My analysis of Flambeau artifacts revealed two important tendencies in the majority of student articles, the first being that most of the Flambeau articles expressed outrage towards the rioters at the University of Mississippi and the actions of Governor Ross Barnett. Second, most student writers did not juxtapose the Mississippi riots with Florida universities. Despite the dearth of explicit comparisons in the Flambeau articles between the Florida universities and the University of Mississippi concerning race and integration, I determined how students at FSU viewed these issues by analyzing the language and attitudes of the Flambeau articles on the subject. I discovered that while most FSU students viewed the Mississippi rioters negatively, fewer were prepared to extend their support to integration or condemn racial injustice closer to home. James Meredith’s cause remained especially polarizing. The significance of these findings is in how they reveal the prevailing attitudes of FSU students. Overt racism and disobedience of civil authority were easily condemned, but the causes of integration and civil rights remained controversial. There were individual exceptions to these norms—some students praised Barnett and blamed the Kennedy Administration, Supreme Court, or Communists for the riots. In either case, the Flambeau articles offered important insight into the contemporary beliefs of FSU students during this period.

Keywords: Tallahassee, Race, Florida Flambeau, segregation, integration