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REPORT: Civil Rights Icon Suffers Fall During 90th Birthday Event

African-American Civil Rights Movement figure and first African-American student at the University of Mississippi in 1962, James Meredith gestures as he poses at the exhibition entitled

African-American Civil Rights Movement figure and first African-American student at the University of Mississippi in 1962, James Meredith gestures as he poses at the exhibition entitled "I am a man", Photographs and struggles for civic rights in the south of the USA 1960-1970 at the Pavillon Populaire in Montpellier, France on October 16, 2018. (Photo by SYLVAIN THOMAS/AFP via Getty Images)

John Oyewale Contributor
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Civil rights icon James Meredith suffered a fall Sunday outside the Mississippi Capitol during his 90th birthday celebration, The Associated Press (AP) reported.

Meredith was due to give a speech to about 200 guests during the ceremony’s final hour when the portable lectern collapsed forward and he fell on top of it, according to AP. Guests closest to him helped Meredith back on his feet and into his wheelchair and administered cold compress treatment to him, as temperatures had reached about 95 degrees Fahrenheit, the outlet reported.

Meredith saw the event through to its end, received a check-up from ambulance services and departed with family and friends, apparently without visible injuries. “He’s enjoying his birthday cake now. He’s tougher than anybody I’ve ever known,” said his wife, Judith, according to AP. (RELATED: International Black History Museum Opens At Former Slave Port)

Prior to the accident, Meredith had led a march against crime from the Jackson Police Department to the State Capitol as part of his birthday celebration, according to local ABC affiliate WAPT.

Meredith, an Air Force veteran, became the University of Mississippi’s first African American student in 1962 following a Supreme Court ruling and faced on-campus violence from a white mob, according to university records.

He also led the 1966 “March Against Fear” from Memphis to Jackson to protest the disenfranchisement of black Americans, the university notes. Meredith survived being shot on the second day of the walk and later recovered enough to finish the march alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders who took up the march from where Meredith left off after the shooting, according to AP.