Civil rights activist James Meredith said in...

Civil rights activist James Meredith said in Sacramento that Dodger Vice President Al Campanis should not have been fired for his comments about blacks in baseball.

“The man absolutely didn’t say that blacks are ignorant and can’t manage,” Meredith said at an annual prayer breakfast for the Sacramento NAACP.

Meredith, who integrated the University of Mississippi in 1962 amid violent protests, called the debate about Campanis a waste of time that could be better spent “on more important issues.”

“What the man said is what he believed,” Meredith said. “I never knew a black man who knew anything about the situation who didn’t say the same thing.”

Meredith said he thought “Nightline” interviewer Ted Koppel asked loaded questions “to produce whatever impression he wants in the minds of observers.”