Meredith March against Fear

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The Meredith March Against Fear was a civil rights demonstration that started in Memphis, Tennessee, and ended in Jackson, Mississippi in June 1966. It is best known for introducing the slogan of “Black Power.” It began on June 5 as the endeavor of James Meredith, the man who integrated the University of Mississippi in 1962. He announced goals of registering Black voters and defying white racist intimidation. On the second day, a white racist shot and wounded him. Representatives from all the major civil rights organizations came to Memphis with the intention of continuing Meredith’s march. Ultimately, the NAACP and National Urban League declined to participate, given the militant politics of organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Martin Luther King, of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), emerged as the key moderating force. Over three weeks, hundreds of marchers walked south down Highway 51 and then detoured into the Mississippi Delta, holding rallies and registering voters. In Batesville, a man named El Fondren, who had been born in slavery, registered to vote for the first time in his 106 years of life. When the march reached Greenwood, Stokely Carmichael, the new chairman of SNCC, spoke at a rally and proclaimed, “What we need now is Black Power!” The crowd responded with enthusiasm, as “Black Power” captured African Americans’ frustrations with the slow pace of federal reforms and the limits of interracial cooperation; it further articulated aspirations of Black pride and electoral power. King did not use the slogan, however, as it challenged his core principles of interracial amity and nonviolence. In the march’s final week, activists faced some harrowing violence. In the town of Philadelphia, a white mob attacked the demonstrators, and in Canton, the Mississippi Highway Patrol tear-gassed and beat hundreds of marchers who had claimed a Black elementary school as a campsite. The march ended on June 26 with an estimated 15,000 people walking through the state capital of Jackson. The Meredith March is often understood as a turning point in the civil rights movement, as it was the last mass demonstration of its kind, while Black Power grew prominent. It had a significant local impact as well, as over four thousand people registered to vote and countless more defied the culture of racial fear that characterized much of Mississippi.