James Meredith looks at Aubrey Norvell, partially hidden behind foliage, after Norvell shot him in Hernando, Miss., on June 6, 1966.

(MEMPHIS) On June 6, 1966, on a stretch of Highway 51 just south of Hernando, Mississippi, a portly, middle-aged white man named Aubrey Norvell stepped out of a gully, lifted his shotgun and fired three shots at James Meredith, a Black civil rights activist and Air Force veteran.

Famous for integrating the University of Mississippi four years earlier, Meredith was on the second day of a walk from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, with the aims of registering voters and defying white intimidation.

Originally published on theconversation.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.

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