The March Against Fear began as an individual act by James Meredith to assert the right of all African Americans to move across the South unmolested. Meredith, the student who integrated Ole Miss in 1962, wanted to prove that he could conquer his own fear, and that of others, by walking safely from Memphis, Tenn., to Jackson, Miss. Meredith also hoped to encourage locals along the way to take the physical and economic risks to register to vote and participate in the June primary.