Forgot about the significance

al-Reuters has a story by John Whitesides about the historic significance of the upcoming presidential debate:

For the University of Mississippi, Barack Obama's scheduled campus appearance in a presidential debate on Friday is more than ironic. It's a testament to progress.
The deep South campus, commonly known as Ole Miss, was the site of a deadly 1962 riot over the court-ordered enrollment of the first black student, James Meredith. The clash with federal troops sent by President John Kennedy became a landmark moment in the U.S. civil rights movement.
The state became the epicenter of the national battle over rights for blacks in the United States, and the murder of three civil-rights workers in Mississippi in 1964 helped spur passage in Congress of a law forbidding racial segregation in schools, employment and public places.
More than four decades later, the university is scheduled to host the first presidential debate involving a black nominee of a major party when Democrat Obama faces Republican rival John McCain on Friday.
The debate was still uncertain on Thursday, with McCain threatening to skip the event in order to participate in negotiations on a $700 billion bailout of U.S. financial institutions.
But debate organizers say it will go on, and university officials hope it will offer a chance to update the campus's image and show a new face to more than 3,000 journalists descending on Oxford from around the world.
"The position we have taken is to be very upfront, very direct and very honest about the history of the state and the school," said Chancellor Robert Khayat, an alumni and former football player at Mississippi.
Blacks now comprise 14 percent of the student body, and the campus features a civil rights monument that includes a statue of Meredith.
No one knew Obama, an Illinois senator, would be the Democratic nominee when the university began preparing its debate bid years ago. The university has spent about $5 million on upgrades for the debate.

Rico says it's so ironic, it's cool... (That whirring sound? That's a bunch of white supremacists turning in their graves.)