NATCHEZ — Civil rights icon James Meredith will be the guest speaker at Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church’s Black History Month Service at 11 a.m. Sunday and organizers invite everyone to attend.

Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church Pastor, the Rev. Melvin White, said he is thrilled to have Meredith as the program’s speaker.

“I thought about a guest speaker for Black History Month,” White said, “and his name came across my mind.”

White said he put out a few feelers to friends in the community and was able to secure Meredith for the program.

Meredith, 85, was the first black student to attend Ole Miss in what proved to be one of the major events of the civil rights movement in Mississippi, as then-Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett threatened to block Meredith from attending the university despite the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that segregation was unconstitutional.

Riots ensued on campus as Meredith attempted to enroll in the university in 1962 and President John F. Kennedy mobilized the National Guard to escort Meredith into the university.

White said he believes Meredith speaking at the church on Sunday will be a great opportunity for young people to gain an understanding of the hard-fought battles of the civil rights era.

“I’ve been networking with the school district, encouraging the young people to be there to hear his message,” White said. “Many of them are African-American students, and he is the one who paved the way for that.”

White said a documentary would be screened during the service showing Meredith being escorted into Ole Miss.

“Most of the young people are not familiar with that story,” White said, “and we want to show them a little documentation of what he went through to get into Ole Miss. … This is a great opportunity for the young kids — they may not understand what he did but seeing what he did on that documentary on the big screen will help them understand.”

White said the program also would also include a performance of the church’s mass choir, which is a combination of the youth choir, male choir and the full choir with approximately 90 members.

White said he believes Sunday also will mark the first time Meredith has ever made a public speech in Natchez.

“We are inviting everyone to come out and be a part of the grand occasion of having a civil rights icon to the city,” White said.

The service starts at 11 a.m. Sunday at Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, 117 Pilgrim Blvd., Natchez.