SouthTalks: Walking Alone: James Meredith's March Against Fear & the Politicization of Violence in the Black Freedom Struggle

Overview

In this SouthTalk, Zachary Clary will focus on James Meredith’s 1966 March Against Fear from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi. While walking through DeSoto County, Mississippi, along US Highway 51, Meredith collapsed to the ground, felled by a shotgun blast. He survived but could not continue the march. Other movement leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., Floyd McKissick, and Stokely Carmichael, stepped in to complete the journey to Jackson.

Clary will discuss the important questions of what happened and explore what the March Against Fear meant. How was this example of violence—a singular man walking alone in protest and gunned down—remembered? How did Americans inside and outside of the civil rights movement react to this attack on Meredith? What was its symbolic significance?

Zachary Clary is a history PhD candidate at Vanderbilt University and the recipient of the 2025 Study the SouthResearch Fellowship. His research explores the instrumentalization, politicization, and memory of violence in the twentieth-century Black freedom struggle. He has written previously for Smithsonian Magazine, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The Washington Monthly, among others.