Ross R. Barnett

Ross Robert Barnett (January 22, 1898 – November 6, 1987) was the Democratic Governor of the U.S. state of Mississippi from 1960 to 1964. He actively opposed the integration of the University of Mississippi by James Meredith in 1962. The following year, he also actively tried to prevent the Mississippi State University basketball team from playing an NCAA Tournament game against the integrated team from Loyola of Chicago. The team defied Barnett by sneaking out of the state and playing the game, which they lost to the eventual national champions. Barnett was also notorious for walking past the jury during the trial of white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith, the then-accused murderer of African American civil rights activist Medgar Evers, an action widely regarded as his exercising undue influence aimed at securing de la Beckwith's acquittal, and considered one reason why the trial ended with a "hung jury" and a mistrial. (De La Beckwith was eventually convicted at a subsequent trial over three decades later.)

Ross Barnett Reservoir, north of Jackson, Mississippi, is named in his honor.