While on a consulting assignment in Mississippi this past summer, I reached out to and befriended James Meredith. James is one of the last living civil rights figures of the time. I have now spent several hours with James in person and on the phone maintaining our relationship and hoping to absorb everything I can from him. Who more appropriately portrays the complicated "American Experience" than a man, so in love with his country and our way of life, that he was and is willing to sacrifice himself in the name of American progress?