Richard E. Holmes

Mississippi State University announced on October 16, 2026, that Dr. Richard E. Holmes had died that day at the age of 82. The university did not state a cause of death or the place of death, and neither has been made public.

President Mark E. Keenum said: "My wife and my four children, all now MSU students, join me in mourning the death of a man who profoundly and positively influenced our university. Dr. Richard Holmes was a man of courage, vision, and patience who enrolled at this university on July 19, 1965. Later, he earned the honor of being our first Black National Alumnus of the Year. We were also fortunate to have him serve as a physician at our Longest Student Health Center. Dr. Holmes cast a long, productive, and impactful shadow over this institution, a shadow that also leaned forward. I will miss his company and his counsel."

His death came less than two months after the dedication of Holmes Plaza. Funeral and memorial arrangements had not been announced at the time of writing.

Richard E. Holmes was born in Chicago, Illinois, on February 17, 1944, one of 10 children of Horace and Minnie Holmes. When he was 18 months old his parents separated, and his mother took him and three older brothers to Mississippi. The boys were left at the Starkville home of Eliza Hunter, a family friend whom Holmes came to know as his grandmother.

"My grandmother was not educated but she believed in education, hard work, honesty, and going to church," he recalled. "She instilled those values in us boys and taught us not to make excuses, that being poor and black was no reason for failure."

Before Hunter died in 1956 at the age of 86, she asked Dr. Douglas Conner, a Starkville physician, community leader and civil rights activist, to "take care of my boys." In 1958, at age 14, Holmes moved into the Conner family home. Conner became his godfather and life mentor. "It was a godsend, a salvation," Holmes said. "He prodded me to stay in school and keep up my grades. He treated me like a son."

His attachment to Mississippi State began early. In 1957, at 13, he watched the university's homecoming parade from the corner of Main Street and Washington Street in Starkville. "At that moment, destiny was set in motion," he said in a 2005 speech. "I did not know when. I did not know how, but I knew at that very moment that I someday would be a Mississippi State Bulldog."

Holmes graduated in 1963 from Henderson High School, Starkville's segregated Black high school, where he excelled academically and played linebacker and guard on the football team. Dr. Conner sent him to Wiley College, a private historically Black college in Marshall, Texas, where he took pre-medical courses for two years and was active in Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and the football program.

In the summer of 1965 he transferred to Mississippi State University, becoming its first African American student. Because money was tight, he left full-time study in 1967 to teach school in Aliceville, Alabama, and completed his Bachelor of Arts in liberal arts in 1969 through night and correspondence courses.

After two years of Army service he returned to Mississippi State and earned a master's degree in microbiology and nutrition, reported by the university as completed in 1973, and took further graduate hours while waiting for admission to medical school. He earned his Doctor of Medicine from Michigan State University in 1977, then completed internships in Alabama and residency training in Ohio. Mississippi State awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science in 2011 for contributions to the practice of medicine and the expansion of educational opportunity.

Holmes integrated Mississippi State on July 19, 1965, enrolling for the summer term when the fewest people were on campus. He read a short written statement to the press that day: "I did not come here for fanfare or publicity. As a lifelong Mississippian, I am here to study and learn at a high-rated Mississippi university, which happens to be in my hometown. I seek no special favors and I hope that there will be no impediments from any source during my stay here at State."

His arrival came three years after James Meredith's entry to the University of Mississippi triggered deadly rioting and only a year after the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County. By contrast, about 200 white onlookers greeted Holmes in quiet resignation. Encouraged by President Dean W. Colvard's administration and by Dr. Conner, he returned for the fall semester and lived alone in a twin room in Evans Hall. He faced isolation and occasional heckling but no violence.

After graduating he served two years in the United States Army. The monument later dedicated in his honor describes him as an infantry paratrooper and military police investigator during the Vietnam era. Following medical school he practiced emergency and trauma medicine in Birmingham, Alabama, for 23 years, and the monument also records his service as a medical triage officer during Operation Desert Storm.

In January 2003 he returned to his alma mater as a staff physician at the John C. Longest Student Health Center, hired by director Dr. Robert Collins. In 2011 the university noted that he was practicing in Columbus and Meridian, and by 2015 it described him as a retired physician and longtime Columbus resident.

Holmes married Judie Granderson, a former school teacher from Columbus, Mississippi (her first name sometimes appears as Judy in university reports). They had a daughter, Rikeda, and a son, Richard Jr., who served in the United States Army. After years in Birmingham, the couple moved back to Mississippi in 2003 and settled in Columbus, Judie's hometown.

Holmes was a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, which he joined at Wiley College, and in 2026 an MSU student spoke at Holmes Plaza as his fraternity brother. He was widely described as soft-spoken, courteous and self-effacing.

Holmes framed his enrollment as a personal and patriotic choice rather than a protest. He said he came to Mississippi State because it was his home and because he loved it. "Let me make this crystal clear, I came into Mississippi State because it is my home and No. 2 Richard E. Holmes loves Mississippi State University. I will always be a loyal Bulldog," he said.

He was shaped by mentors who favored persistent, gradual expansion of civil rights alongside racial reconciliation, including Dr. Douglas Conner and the civil rights tradition of Wiley College, associated with James Farmer. He consistently credited the students and staff of 1965 for their restraint. "Even with some occasional heckling, students seemed to follow the rules of engagement," he said. "I recognized where they were coming from; this institution had been segregated for 87 years."

In his 2003 commencement address he said: "Only a university dedicated to fairness and excellence could have carried out such an orderly transition and such a quiet burial of past practices." He also spoke of the values Eliza Hunter taught him: education, hard work, honesty and faith.

Holmes was one of a small group of Black Mississippians who desegregated the state's major public universities during the civil rights era, and his entry was the most peaceful of those efforts to that point. His admission helped open a path for later generations: by 2011 Mississippi State reported almost 3,900 African American students, about 20 percent of enrollment.

The Richard E. Holmes Cultural Diversity Center, named for him in 1991, continues to serve students, and the Holmes minority scholarship he and Judie endowed carries his name. In 2004 he donated his personal and professional papers to the university's Mitchell Memorial Library. On August 21, 2026, Mississippi State renamed the former YMCA Plaza, between the Colvard Student Union and the historic YMCA Building, as the Dr. Richard E. Holmes Plaza and unveiled a bronze relief monument. President Mark E. Keenum called it "a place where everyone can find opportunity and belonging."

After his death Keenum said, "Dr. Holmes cast a long, productive, and impactful shadow over this institution, a shadow that also leaned forward."

1991: Mississippi State names its cultural diversity center, the Richard E. Holmes Cultural Diversity Center, in his honor. 2003: Delivers the Mississippi State spring commencement address on May 10. 2005: Named to the Wiley College Board of Trustees. 2006: Mississippi State National Alumnus of the Year, the first Black recipient of the honor. 2007: Commended by the Mississippi Legislature in House Resolution 42. 2011: Honorary Doctor of Science from Mississippi State University. 2015: Mississippi State marks the 50th anniversary of his enrollment with an open house and a "50 Years of Inclusion" dinner. 2025: Students mark the 60th anniversary with letters of thanks. 2026: Dedication of the Dr. Richard E. Holmes Plaza and monument on August 21.

Holmes spoke often about his experience. Mississippi State's Holmes Cultural Diversity Center hosted "Leading Out Front: A Conversation with Dr. Richard Holmes" on February 4, 2014, in the Colvard Student Union. The university produced short video profiles of him in 2014 and 2015, a 2025 film in which students read letters thanking him for the 60th anniversary of his enrollment, and coverage of the 2026 plaza dedication.

His enrollment is discussed in Michael B. Ballard's history Maroon and White: Mississippi State University, 1878 to 2003 (University Press of Mississippi, 2008), and in a 2022 student podcast episode, The Firsts, about James Meredith and Holmes.