2.25" with name of maker on curl, Slater. James Meredith was in 1962 the first African American student admitted to the segregated University Of Mississippi. Four years later on June 6, 1966, as documented by this button, James Meredith started a solitary "March Against Fear" for 220 miles beginning in Memphis Tennessee and planned to end in Jackson, Mississippi to protest against racism. Soon after beginning the march he was injured by a gunman using a shotgun. On hearing the news other civil rights activists including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Martin Luther King and the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee's Stokely Carmichael (and others) decided to continue the march in Meredith's name. Ten days later, still on the march, Carmichael was arrested for trespassing on public property but rejoined the marchers at a local park where camp had been established. Carmichael took to the speaker's platform and delivered his famous "Black Power" speech. King, who had gone to Chicago on that Wednesday to organize open housing marches, returned to Mississippi on Friday to find that the civil rights movements' divisions between the old guard and the new guard had become public. SNCC's "Black Power" slogan was now competing for attention with SCLC's "Freedom Now" slogan. This button is also known as a black on cream version. First we recall seeing this black on orange version. Trivial traces of surface wear only in reflected light. Exc. and displays Mint.