Civil rights icon James Meredith is honored in his Mississippi hometown

KOSCIUSKO, Miss. (AP) — A new historical marker has been unveiled in the hometown of James Meredith, honoring the Black man who fought white supremacy by integrating the University of Mississippi in 1962.

Meredith, 91, wore a red Ole Miss baseball hat as he watched Friday's ceremony from the front seat of a pickup truck owned by Kosciusko, a town of 6,800 that is also the birthplace of media mogul Oprah Winfrey. About 85 people attended, and many snapped selfies with Meredith and his wife, Judy Alsobrooks Meredith.

“Most important day of my life,” Meredith said in a brief interview.

“Over half the people here are my relatives," he said. "And for relatives to stand out in the cold like they did — that’s something special.”

Meredith, who resists being called a civil rights leader, now lives in Mississippi's capital city of Jackson. He was born in Kosciusko and grew up on a nearby farm. He graduated from high school in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 1951, and served for nine years in the Air Force before returning to Mississippi.

He attended Jackson State College — the historically Black school that is now Jackson State University — for two years before suing to gain admission as the first Black student at the University of Mississippi.

A white mob erupted in violence when Meredith registered at Ole Miss, and U.S. marshals protected him on and off the Oxford campus. The university has honored him several times in the decades since then. Today, about 10% of students at the university are Black.

“He’s a man whose courage profoundly altered the course of history,” Kosciusko Mayor Tim Kyle said Friday.

While Meredith was enrolled at Ole Miss, his parents and some of his siblings lived in a small brick home in Kosciusko. The new historical marker is a short walk from that house, roughly where marshals would park when Meredith visited family in 1962 and 1963.

Florida State University professor Davis Houck and his students collaborated with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History on the new marker, which also notes that Meredith was shot during a 1966 “March Against Fear” — a planned walk from Memphis, Tennessee; to Jackson, Mississippi; to encourage Black voter registration.

Meredith's oldest son, John Meredith, is currently the city council president in Huntsville, Alabama. He said he was unable to attend the unveiling of other historical markers honoring his father at Ole Miss, at the site of the 1966 shooting in Hernando, Mississippi, and outside the state Capitol.

John Meredith said he has fond memories of visiting his grandmother, known as Ms. Roxie, in the brick home in Kosciusko.

“So all of this is quite the homecoming for me personally, and obviously my father is ecstatic about being honored this way in his hometown,” John Meredith said. "It’s a great day for the Meredith family.”

James Meredith, right, who became the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962, and his wife Judy Alsobrooks Meredith watch the unveiling of a Mississippi Department of Archives and History marker recognizing his birthplace and his legacy in Kosciusko, Miss., Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

A crowd watch the unveiling of a Mississippi Department of Archives and History marker recognizing the birthplace and legacy of James Meredith, who became the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024, in Kosciusko, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

George Smith, left, congratulates James Meredith, who became the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962, on being honored with a Mississippi Department of Archives and History marker recognizing his birthplace and his legacy in the Civil Rights Movement, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024, in Kosciusko, Miss.(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Family members celebrate the legacy of James Meredith who became the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962, following the unveiling of a Mississippi Department of Archives and History marker recognizing his birthplace in Kosciusko, Miss., Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Kosciusko, Miss., Mayor Tim Kyle, unveils a Mississippi Department of Archives and History marker recognizing the birthplace and civil rights movement legacy of James Meredith, who became the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024, in Kosciusko, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Judy Alsobrooks Meredith, wife of James Meredith, who became the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962, left, and Kosciusko Mayor Tim Kyle, review the Mississippi Department of Archives and History marker recognizing Meredith's birthplace and his legacy in Kosciusko, Miss., Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Hazel Meredith Hall, 85, center, watches the unveiling of a Mississippi Department of Archives and History marker recognizing the birthplace and legacy of her older brother, James Meredith, who became the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024, in Kosciusko, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

A car speeds past a Mississippi Department of Archives and History marker recognizing the birthplace and legacy of James Meredith in the Civil Rights Movement, in Kosciusko, Miss., Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. Meredith, was the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

Judy Alsobrooks Meredith, wife of James Meredith, who became the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962, stands before a Mississippi Department of Archives and History marker recognizing his birthplace and his legacy in Kosciusko, Miss., Friday, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

James Meredith, who became the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi in 1962, acknowledges the crowd in Kosciusko, Miss., Friday, Dec. 20, 2024, during the unveiling of a Mississippi Department of Archives and History marker recognizing his birthplace and his legacy in the Civil Rights Movement. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City police have a person in custody who is suspected to have set a woman on fire in the subway early Sunday and then watched from a bench as she became engulfed in flames and died.

Surveillance video showed the man calmly approach the woman, who was sitting motionless and may have been sleeping, while aboard a stationary F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station and then set her on fire.

Her clothing “became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds,” said New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, describing the case as “one of the most depraved crimes one person could possibly commit against another human being.”

The man then sat on a nearby bench outside the train car and watched as officers and a transit worker extinguished the flames. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.

The man was arrested hours later while riding on the same subway line.

The suspect and victim did not appear to know each other and did not interact before the incident, police said.

Police have the man in custody but have not yet released his identity. The woman's name has not yet been released.

Authorities had circulated images of the man from surveillance cameras and police body camera videos taken at the crime scene. A group of high school students tipped off police to the man's presence on a train later Sunday, and he was taken into custody.

He was wearing the same clothes and had a lighter in his pocket when he apprehended, police said.

Police patrol the New York City subways, and there are a vast network of cameras in stations and in all subway cars.

But the sheer size of the subway system — 472 stations with multiple entry points and millions of riders each day — make policing the transit system a logistical nightmare.

In Sunday's incident, officers were at the station but on an upper level patrolling a different subway platform. They responded after seeing and smelling smoke coming from the lower platform.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul earlier this year directed members of the state's National Guard to assist with random bag checks at certain stations.

Violent incidents in the subway often put people on edge, in part because many New Yorkers take the train multiple times a day and often have their own experiences with uncomfortable interactions in the system.

Broadly, crime is down in the city transit system this year compared to the same time period in 2023. Data compiled by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority show a 6% decline in what the agency calls major felonies between January and November of this year and 2023.

At the same time, murders in the transit system are up, with nine killings this year through November compared to five in the same time period last year.

High-profile incidents on the train, such as the case of Daniel Penny, a military veteran who choked an agitated New York subway rider and was acquitted of homicide this month, often attract national attention and further unnerve passengers.

FILE - New York Police officers clear a train at the Coney Island Stillwell Avenue Terminal, May 5, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, file)