Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, and Willie Ricks enjoy a moment of levity. Unable to continue the march, he was taken to a Memphis hospital to recover from his injuries. Soon after crossing the state line between Tennessee and Mississippi, on the second day of his march, June 6, Meredith was shot and wounded by James Aubrey Norvell, a white sniper. He hoped the march would spur political education and subsequent voter registration among Mississippi’s African Americans.ĭespite the history of violence against African Americans generally and specifically civil rights activists in Mississippi, Meredith decided to walk without the support of other civil rights activists or protection from local police or the U.S. Highway 51 from the Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, to the Mississippi State Capitol in Jackson, a total of 270 miles. Meredith decided to protest the racial violence in his home state by engaging in a 21-day solitary march down U.S. Four years earlier he had become the first African American student to integrate the University of Mississippi by enrolling there in 1962. The “March Against Fear” began on June 5, 1966, and was initiated by civil rights activist James Meredith.
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