Paul Guihard, was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 journalist covering the Civil Rights Movement

Civil rights movement

The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in the 1960s. He was murdered in rioting

Ole Miss riot of 1962

The Ole Miss riot 1962 was a riot fought between Southern segregationist civilians and federal and state forces as a result of the forced enrollment of black student James Meredith at the University of Mississippi at Oxford, Mississippi.On October 1, 1962, James H...

 at the campus of the University of Mississippi

University of Mississippi

The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...

 in Oxford

Oxford, Mississippi

Oxford is a city in, and the county seat of, Lafayette County, Mississippi, United States. Founded in 1835, it was named after the British university city of Oxford in hopes of having the state university located there, which it did successfully attract....

 after James Meredith

James Meredith

James H. Meredith is an American civil rights movement figure, a writer, and a political adviser. 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. Motivated by President...

 attempted to enroll at the all-white school. He was shot in the back at almost point-blank range by an unknown assailant near the Lyceum building. Guihard's case was closed without success and never re-investigated. In his last dispatch made the very same day, he had written "The Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 has never ended."

Shortly before his death, Guihard wrote of the carnival atmosphere among white Mississippians protesting Meredith's enrollment. "People are not at all aware of the enormity of their gesture, of its repercussions and of the interest it is creating all over the world," Guihard wrote.

Guihard's death was an important international dimension to the Civil Rights Movement, sparking outrage and attracting world media attention. Guihard, who was 30-years old at the time of his death, was also known as "Flash" by his fellow reporters.

External links

• Article in Clarion-Ledger