"Separate" echoed through the room, as a father - a prominent civil rights activist - and his son stood in a local church.
"There will be only one group," Arthur Miller said, tearing the application for nonwhite boys and its message in half.
And with that, a united Oxford Cub Scout troop was created.
That was just one step in Arthur Miller's long journey toward social justice and equality that ended Monday, Jan. 22 at the age of 85 with his passing.
"He achieved many firsts (in Oxford) and paved the way for others to have the opportunities he did," said Vanessa Cummings, assistant director of parking services at Miami University and the former president of the Oxford unit of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). "He was a trailblazer."
According to Miller's daughter-in-law and current president of the Oxford unit of the NAACP, Jan Miller, Arthur Miller was born Christmas Day, 1921 in Cincinnati to a progressive family who was persistently pushing for civil rights in the community. Shortly after he was born, his parents moved to Oxford for better employment and soon his mother found work as a nanny and his father as a janitor. During this time, Miller had already begun to push the boundaries of segregation in rural Ohio.
"His involvement in civil rights began at a very young age," Jan said. "His main goal in life was to make change."
After graduating from Oxford's Stewart High School in 1940, Miller served in the Army for approximately four years during World War II, ending his term as a staff sergeant. Once released from the Army, Miller returned to Oxford and obtained a degree in education from Miami in 1949. According to Miami's Library Web site, Miller became the first African-American student teacher at Miami in 1948 but never obtained a teaching position.
Instead Miller became a custodian in the Miami's Alumni Library and then, according to Miami's University Libraries Web site, in 1969 became the first African-American staff member at Miami to reach the managerial rank by managing the university's Central Foods Stores.
His career spanned more than 30 years at Miami until he retired in 1978 with emeritus standing.
Yet Miller's life went far beyond the university.
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As a dedicated civil rights worker, Miller was one of the charter members of Oxford's NAACP and became president of the chapter in 1963. In August of that year he also participated in the march on Washington, according to Jan Miller.
Miller kept his title at the NAACP for the next 30 years during the peak of the civil rights movement and died as president emeritus of the organization.
According to Jan, when trainers for Freedom Summer came to what was then Miami's Western College for Women in 1964, Miller and other community members were eager to help. Together they created the Friends of the Mississippi Summer Project that planned, funded and supported participants in Freedom Summer.
Freedom Summer was a campaign to bring thousands of black and white students from across the nation to the South to teach and organize voter registration. Miller himself was a founder of one Freedom School in Mississippi, according to Jan.
Yet the period's nonviolent protests ended in disaster when three Freedom Summer participants who were trained in Oxford were killed in June 1964. Steve Schwerner, brother of murdered volunteer Michael Schwerner, referred to the killings as a "high price to pay" for equality.
Schwerner, who was not directly involved in the project, believes participants' goals, like his brother's and Miller's, should influence young people today.
"(Freedom Summer) changed Mississippi and the country in 1964 and 1965 and young people can do it now," Schwerner said. "People should use it as a model of possibility."
Immediately following the deaths, Congress passed the Civil Rights act of 1964, outlawing discrimination in public places such as restaurants and buses.
Once Miller had heard of the murders, he packed his bags to go to Mississippi and help remaining volunteers, according to Jan.
Yet he did so from the goodness of his heart.
"(Miller) did not serve for credit," Cummings said. "He did it because it was the right thing to do."
More than 30 years later it was Miller again who advocated and raised money for the Freedom Summer memorial on Western campus, which was built in 2000.
"He was a real local hero working from the grassroots level," said philosophy professor and close friend Richard Momeyer, who was also involved in Freedom Summer and the memorial.
And his legacy reins on.
Just days prior to Miller's death, a Klu Klux Klansman in Jackson, Miss., was arrested for the murders of two black men in 1964, the same year as Freedom Summer. Clarion-Ledger reporter Jerry Mitchell, known for civil rights reporting who was a guest lecturer at Miami just last year, helped break the story, which, according to Mitchell, is the 28th arrest from the civil rights area for the United States in the past two decades.
Schwerner believes arrests such as this are exactly what Miller and other members of Freedom Summer were trying to accomplish.
"We need to keep the history (of Freedom Summer) alive and learn from it," Schwerner said. "Hopefully we can further more social justice."
In addition to his civil rights work, Miller was also a life member of the Oxford Kiwanis Club, one of the first members of the Miami University affirmative action committee, an organizer of the Miami University Community Federal Credit Union and a member of the Oxford United Methodist Church. He served six years on the Oxford City Council, was vice mayor for two years and was named Oxford's "Citizen of the Years" in 1967, according to The Oxford Press.
Miller married Blossom Walden Miller in 1942 and had five sons - Richard, Michael, Adrian, Anthony and Christopher. He later married in 1975, who he had been married to until his death.
Miller pushed equality for his children not only in the Boy Scouts, but also at segregated barber shops and pools, Jan said.
His contributions, whether small or big, whether recognized locally or nationally, Miller will be missed by not only friends and family who were close to him, but Oxford itself.
"Arthur's death leaves a huge hole in our community, "Momeyer said. " He was a most distinguished citizen - it was a privilege to know him."
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