Down to the Crossroads: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Meredith March Against Fear Author: Aram Goudsouzian | Language: English | ISBN:
0374192200 | Format: PDF
Down to the Crossroads: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Meredith March Against Fear Description
In 1962, James Meredith became a civil rights hero when he enrolled as the first African American student at the University of Mississippi. Four years later, he would make the news again when he reentered Mississippi, on foot. His plan was to walk from Memphis to Jackson, leading a “March Against Fear” that would promote black voter registration and defy the entrenched racism of the region. But on the march’s second day, he was shot by a mysterious gunman, a moment captured in a harrowing and now iconic photograph.
What followed was one of the central dramas of the civil rights era. With Meredith in the hospital, the leading figures of the civil rights movement flew to Mississippi to carry on his effort. They quickly found themselves confronting southern law enforcement officials, local activists, and one another. In the span of only three weeks, Martin Luther King, Jr., narrowly escaped a vicious mob attack; protesters were teargassed by state police; Lyndon Johnson refused to intervene; and the charismatic young activist Stokely Carmichael first led the chant that would define a new kind of civil rights movement: Black Power.
Aram Goudsouzian’s Down to the Crossroads is the story of the last great march of the King era, and the first great showdown of the turbulent years that followed. Depicting rural demonstrators’ courage and the impassioned debates among movement leaders, Goudsouzian reveals the legacy of an event that would both integrate African Americans into the political system and inspire even bolder protests against it. Full of drama and contemporary resonances, this book is civil rights history at its best.
- Hardcover: 368 pages
- Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1 edition (February 4, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0374192200
- ISBN-13: 978-0374192204
- Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Meredith March of 1966
James Meredith integrator of Ole Miss returns to the spotlight with his planned March Against Fear from Memphis to Jackson. He had two main goals—challenge blacks to fight their daily fears of whites in the south, especially Mississippi, and the second goal register 450,000 voters. The book looks at this march initiated by Meredith and continued by “Others” after he was nearly killed in an assassination attempt. The March occurs mainly during the month of June 1966.
Dissolution of Civil Rights Coalition
The “Others” included leaders and representatives of each of the major civil rights organizations—SCLC, SNCC, CORE, NAACP and many local organizations participating in the march and vying to re-make (co-opt?) the Meredith March in ways that would advance their own agendas. Each differed on strategy, tactics and objectives.
The organizations’ agendas conflicted. The march surfaced major organizational differences that lead to permanent rifts which prevented these organizations from working collaboratively in the future in any major way.
National Introduction of the Slogan—Black Power
The second point of the March was the wide promulgation of the term “Black Power”. This term’s promotion was done primarily by 24 year old SNCC president Stokely Carmichael elevating him to national prominence. The usefulness of this slogan was hotly debated by those involved in the March. The slogan meant many things to many people and took on different meanings at different times. For blacks, the slogan was a call to black pride, self-definition and self-determination. For many whites, aided by slanted press coverage, this slogan conjured anti-white visions of racial retaliation, retribution, and violence.
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