Down to the crossroads

the long version

"The engrossing story of a march that became the key turning point in the history of the civil rights movement On June 5, 1966, the civil rights hero James Meredith left Memphis, Tennessee, on foot. Setting off toward Jackson, Mississippi, he hoped his march would promote Black voter registration and defy racism. The next day, he was shot by a mysterious white man and transferred to a hospital. What followed was one of the key dramas of the civil rights era. When the leading figures of the civil rights movement flew to Mississippi to carry on Meredith's effort, they found themselves confronting Southern law enforcement officials, local activists, and one another. In the subsequent three weeks, Martin Luther King Jr. narrowly escaped a mob attack, protesters were teargassed by state police, Lyndon Johnson refused federal intervention, and the young charismatic activist Stokely Carmichael first led the chant that would define the next phase of the civil rights era: Black Power."--