The March Against Fear: The Last Great Walk of the Civil Rights Movement and the Emergence of Black Power. Ann Bausum

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СКАЧАТЬ of them. Leaders of the revived march asked for broader action.

      It was one o’clock in the morning by the conclusion of the meeting. Movement leaders settled down for a few hours of rest, knowing they’d be back on the road after daylight, traveling to the spot where they’d left off walking the day before. Until they could make more permanent arrangements, they planned to sleep in Memphis by night and walk in Mississippi by day, with each new hike extending their commute between the two locations.

      Meredith remained in Memphis, too. Doctors had recommended he stay under observation at the hospital until he flew home to New York on Thursday. Those plans changed unexpectedly, though, on Wednesday, June 8. That morning, King and McKissick had stopped by Meredith’s room to secure his support of their newly created manifesto. A hospital administrator interrupted their meeting to inform Meredith that he was to be discharged a day early. Regardless of his condition, hospital personnel had grown tired of the security concerns, news media attention, and high-profile visitors that accompanied his stay.

      Meredith, King, and McKissick protested this unexpected eviction, but the hospital staff held firm. He had to leave that day. When Meredith tried to speak to reporters as he departed, he fainted from the sudden exertion and stress. Medical personnel revived him then ferried him to the curb in a wheelchair. Meredith flew home later that day. June Meredith had remained in New York with their six-year-old son, John, during her husband’s walk and hospitalization. That evening she met his flight, joined by a throng of reporters. “I shall return to my divine responsibility,” a weakened Meredith told the journalists, “and we shall reach our destination.”

      Despite his injuries—or, really, because of them—Meredith felt angry. He had entrusted his safety to local law enforcement officers, and they had failed him. Meredith, the military veteran who liked to plan with precision, wondered if he’d made a mistake when he’d brought a Bible to Mississippi instead of a gun. The day after his attack he had conveyed his frustration with dramatic language in a written statement for the press: “I could have knocked this intended killer off with one shot had I been prepared.” Journalists knew the idea of anyone taking the law into his own hands, even in self-defense, could be seen as inflammatory and controversial. Thus, when reporters had the chance to question Meredith in New York, they pressed him on his comment and asked if he would arm himself should he be able to rejoin the campaign.

      Meredith noted that he had turned to state officials for protection originally, and it hadn’t worked; deputies had been present, but they had just stood by while Norvell took shots at him. Could he be confident they’d behave any differently the next time? Meredith told the reporters that if he could not count on receiving protection from local law enforcement personnel, then he had the right to consider arming himself in self-defense when he rejoined the march. When someone asked how he squared such a thought with the doctrine of nonviolence, Meredith replied, “Who the hell ever said I was nonviolent? I spent eight years in the military and the rest of my life in Mississippi.”

      Nonviolent protest or not, James Meredith didn’t plan to get shot again.

       “The shooting of James Meredith is further savage proof that brutality is still the white American way of life in Mississippi.”

      Floyd McKissick, national director for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), June 6, 1966

       “Mississippi is emotionally and socially many miles from that point at which a person can work openly and honestly and even moderately for racial justice without some risk of verbal or physical attack.”

      Russell H. Barrett, professor at the University of Mississippi, speaking February 1, 1966

       “Marching feet announce that time has come for a given idea. When the idea is a sound one, the cause a just one, and the demonstration a righteous one, change will be forthcoming.

       But if any of these conditions are not present, the power for change is missing also.”

      Martin Luther King, Jr., reflecting on the March Against Fear, October 1966

      

      As marchers headed south through Mississippi on June 9, bystanders declared their support for segregation by waving the Confederate battle flag and performing the Confederacy’s unofficial anthem, “Dixie.” Credit 11

      CHAPTER 3

      REVIVED

      JAMES MEREDITH’S WALK became important the minute James Meredith got shot. Before then, it had been a modest effort with only a few supporters. Aubrey Norvell changed that fact the moment he fired his shotgun at Meredith. But Meredith lost influence over his walk when he stopped participating in it, and he further faded in importance after he’d left the region. Even the title of his undertaking began to evolve in his absence.

      Meredith had called his journey a Walk Against Fear. To him, a march equaled a protest. He hadn’t seen his effort as a statement of protest; he’d just been trying to exercise his right to walk through his home state. But now Meredith’s walk was becoming a protest. A protest against violence. A protest against racial fears. A protest in support of voter registration. A protest for further equality. As a consequence, Meredith’s walk morphed into a march. The new venture went by many names. Organizers called it the Meredith Mississippi Freedom March in their manifesto. Some people shortened that name to the Meredith March. Others called it the Mississippi March. Over time it came to be known as the Meredith March Against Fear or, simply, the March Against Fear.

      Whatever the endeavor’s name, almost 200 miles separated organizers from Meredith’s planned destination of Jackson. Tuesday’s revival by civil rights leaders had been more symbolic than productive. The men had covered just six miles. It would take many days of dedicated hiking to complete the journey, many days and countless volunteers.

      DATES WALKED: June 8–11 MILES WALKED: 37 ROUTE: North of Coldwater to north of Pope

      By Wednesday, June 8, those volunteers began to materialize. When Martin Luther King, Jr., and others returned to the day’s starting point, they were heartened to find a gathering of hikers on hand to join them. The group numbered about 120 as it headed south on Highway 51 toward the nearby town of Coldwater and beyond. Most of the day’s walkers were African Americans. Some were local residents; others had traveled by chartered bus from Memphis, inspired by the previous night’s rally there.

      Few of these participants planned to hike for long, and that was okay. Organizers viewed their endeavor as more of a relay than a marathon. It didn’t matter whether someone walked for days on end or for just a few hours. What mattered was for some group of people to keep walking, over time, until they reached Jackson. Thus the composition of the march evolved day by day, as people hugged the side of the road and trudged south under the summer sun. Sometimes movement leaders marched out front—leading—but on other occasions they mingled with the crowd. While they walked, participants often sang freedom songs or chanted the words “freedom” and its Swahili equivalent, “Uhuru,” showing solidarity with blacks involved in the struggle for racial equality in Africa.

      Even though Wednesday’s group had gotten a late start, by 5 p.m. hikers had covered more than six miles and reached the outskirts of the next town, Senatobia. СКАЧАТЬ