lied to the University of Mississippi. His action was an example of how the struggle for civil rights belonged to individuals acting alone as well as to organizations. The university attempted to block Meredith's admission but he filed a suit. President Kennedy ordered Federal Marshal to escort Meredith to campus. A riot broke out before the National Guards could arrive and reinforce the marshals. In the end, two people were killed, and about 375 people were wounded.The national civil rights leadership decided to keep pressure on both the Kennedy administration and the Congress to pass the civil rights legislation proposed by Kennedy by planning a March on Washington for August 1963. Despite worries that few people would attend and that violence would erupt, A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin organized the historic event that would come to symbolize the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered a moving address to an audience of more that 200,000 civil rights supporters. His "I Have a Dream" speech in front of the giant sculpture of the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln, became famous for how it expressed the ideas of the civil rights movement. The year 1964 was the culmination of SNCC's commitment to civil rights activism at the community level. Starting in 1961 organized voter registration campaigns in heavily black, rural counties of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia took place. SNCC worked to register black to vote by teaching them necessary skills--such as reading and writing--and the correct answers to the voter registration application. In early 1965, SCLC employed its direct-action techniques in a voting rights protest initiated by SNCC in Selma, Alabama. When protests at the local courthouse were unsuccessful, protestors began a march to Montgomery, the state capital. As the demonstrators crossed the bridge leading out of Selma, they were ordered to disperse, but the troopers did not wait for the...
