MSU African American Studies hosts 鈥楯ames Meredith and the March Against Fear鈥
Contact: Sasha Steinberg
STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥斞侵奚墒悠碘檚 African American Studies program is continuing its 10th anniversary celebration with a special Wednesday [March 1] panel discussion.
Taking place at 6 p.m. in historic Lee Hall鈥檚 Bettersworth Auditorium, 鈥淛ames Meredith and the March Against Fear鈥 will feature U.S. Air Force veteran James Meredith and fellow activists Flonzie Brown-Wright and Hollis Watkins who participated in the major 1966 Civil Rights Movement demonstration.
In addition to the College of Arts and Sciences鈥 African American Studies program, the panel discussion is supported by the university鈥檚 Office of Public Affairs and the James Worth Bagley College of Engineering鈥檚 Office of Diversity Programs and Student Development.
The panel will be moderated by MSU Associate Professor of History Jason Morgan Ward, author of 鈥淗anging Bridge: Racial Violence and America鈥檚 Civil Rights Century鈥 (Oxford University Press, 2016).
Also making remarks during the evening program will be Aram Goudsouzian, University of Memphis history department chair and author of 鈥淒own to the Crossroads: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Meredith March Against Fear鈥 (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2014).
A Kosciusko native, Meredith became the first African American admitted to the University of Mississippi in 1962. On June 5, 1966, Meredith started the 鈥淢arch Against Fear,鈥 a solo march from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, to increase awareness of civil rights violations in the Magnolia State. He was shot on the second day of the march and unable to continue.
Major civil rights organizations resumed the march. Along with Martin Luther King Jr., community organizers Brown-Wright and Watkins were among those who aided the march.
A Jackson community organizer who inspired 鈥淢arch Against Fear鈥 participants by singing freedom songs, Watkins became the first Mississippi youth to join the 1961 Voting Rights Project of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.聽聽
Based in Canton, Brown-Wright provided shelter and food to King and other 鈥淢arch Against Fear鈥 participants. She became the first black woman to hold elected office in Mississippi when she was named Madison County election commissioner in 1968.
Meredith later rejoined the marchers in Jackson, where he walked alongside King and other civil rights leaders.
Along the way, civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael uttered the phrase 鈥淏lack Power,鈥 which became a national slogan following the march.
For more information, contact LaShundra Townsend, African American Studies administrative assistant, at 662-325-0587 and ltownsend@aas.msstate.edu.
Part of the College of Arts and Sciences, MSU鈥檚 African American Studies program offers courses leading to a minor in African American Studies. For more, visit .
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