Ross Robert Barnett (January 22, 1898 – November 6, 1987) was an American politician and segregationist who served as the 53rd governor of Mississippi from 1960 to 1964.

[1][2] He served in the United States Army during World War I, then worked in jobs while earning an undergraduate degree from Mississippi College in Clinton in 1922.

[3] In order to save money, he worked as schoolhouse janitor, barber, brass band organizer, and door-to-door salesman for WearEver aluminum products.

Using the income derived from his legal fees, Barnett sought to enter politics, unsuccessfully running twice in the Democratic primary for Governor of Mississippi, in 1951 and 1955.

Consequently, Barnett proposed a group of uncommitted Democratic electors, who triumphed over the Mississippi slate committed to endorsing Kennedy in the November elections.

[14] During his first months as governor, the state legislature saw the introduction of 24 new bills advocating segregation, and directives were issued to circuit clerks, instructing them to withhold voter registration data from the Justice Department.

With the accreditation of the state's medical school and other universities in jeopardy due to the political interventions, the IHL board reversed their action after the riots on the campus.

Only two Mississippi legislators opposed Barnett's efforts to defy the federal authorities, Joe Wroten and Karl Wiesenburg.

[26] Barnett was expected by some to run in the 1964 Democratic presidential primaries as a segregationist candidate against incumbent U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, but he did not.

Governor George C. Wallace of Alabama subsequently assumed this role in part, not running openly against Johnson but rather testing his popularity in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Maryland.

[27] Barnett opposed Johnson, whom he called a "counterfeit confederate...who [might] someday resign from the white race" during a "Patriot's Rally Against Tyranny" on 4 July 1964,[28][29] and supported Barry Goldwater due to his vote against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

[30] Shortly after he left office, Barnett's looming presence was evident at the first jury trial of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith in February 1964.

[31] De La Beckwith was on trial for the murder of African American civil rights activist Medgar Evers, but an all-white jury was unable to agree on a verdict in both this and a subsequent re-trial.

In the second subsequent re-trial, former Governor Ross Barnett interrupted the proceedings, while Myrlie Evers was testifying, to shake hands with Beckwith.

De La Beckwith was eventually convicted at a subsequent trial three decades later, a case chronicled in the movie Ghosts of Mississippi.

In a speech before more than 6,000 students and faculty, Kennedy discussed racial reconciliation and answered questions, including those about his role in Meredith's enrollment.

To much laughter from the audience members, he told of a plan in which Barnett had asked that US marshals point their guns at him while Meredith attempted to enroll so that "a picture could be taken of the event.

[34] The next day Barnett bitterly attacked Kennedy's version of events: It ill becomes a man who never tried a lawsuit in his life, but who occupied the high position of United States attorney general and who was responsible for using 30,000 troops and spent approximately six million dollars to put one unqualified student in Ole Miss to return to the scene of this crime and discuss any phase of this infamous affair.

[35]Barnett attempted a political comeback by running for governor again in 1967 but lost, finishing a distant fourth in the state primary.