JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – James Meredith says he conquered white supremacy and created a new Mississippi 59 years ago when he became the first Black student to enroll in the University of Mississippi – a school whose longstanding nickname, Ole Miss, is rooted in plantation vernacular of the Confederacy.
Now, a person close to Meredith is selling “New Miss” merchandise and trying to trademark a logo with cursive script that is nearly identical to the university’s Ole Miss logo. The university is fighting the trademark effort, arguing that the New Miss merchandise is “confusingly similar” to its ubiquitous brand.
Suzi Altman is a photographer who often follows Meredith to document his public appearances. She applied for the New Miss trademark in July 2020, soon after she sold the first T-shirts and other merchandise. Altman said she’s using the brand to try to raise money for a museum that would preserve Meredith’s legacy – a project that still has a long way to go. She said that as of mid-November, she still had not earned a profit on the merchandise.
Meredith was already a military veteran when he integrated the University of Mississippi in 1962 under a federal court order and amid resistance from a race-baiting governor. Federal marshals protected him as mob violence erupted under the oaks and magnolias on the Oxford campus.
A few years ago, one of his friends gave Meredith a baseball cap emblazoned with a logo that looked like the Ole Miss one but said “New Miss.” That friend, the Rev. Robert West, said the phrase more accurately symbolized how Meredith had changed a state with a tarnished legacy of slavery and segregation.