After court battles, sit-ins, Freedom Rides, marches, and protests, the South was still segregated in 1966. Activists growing dissatisfied with the slow pace of change challenged the tactics advocated by more moderate leaders. Others decided to make a difference with individual effort, unaided by organizations or groups. The March Against Fear began as just such an individual act, to assert the right of all African Americans to move across the South unmolested.

James Meredith, the student who integrated the University of Mississippi in 1962, wanted to prove that he could conquer his own fear - and that of others - by walking unharmed from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi. He also hoped to encourage local blacks along the way to take the physical and economic risks to register to vote, and to participate in the June 1966 primary. When Meredith was ambushed on the second day, civil rights leaders hastened to Mississippi to continue the march on his behalf. The SCLC, CORE, SNCC, and the NAACP came together to continue the march, but their cooperation was strained by the increased militancy of SNCC and their ties to the Black Power movement. What the effort exposed was not unity, but splits that ultimately would fragment the civil rights movement.

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Stokely Carmichael
Black Power Movement
Black Panther Party for Self-Defense
Deacons for Defense