Stokely Carmichael, leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, spoke to a crowd in Greenwood, Mississippi in 1964.

FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

RELATED CONTENT

Historian Yohuru Williams recounts the history of the Black Panther Party in the United States.

On April 5, 1968, in a press conference held the day after the slaying of Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael predicts the outbreak of more violence across the nation in retaliation for "white America's biggest mistake."

After becoming the first African-American mayor of a major city when he was elected in 1967, Carl Stokes talks about his hopes for Cleveland's citizens in an interview.

In 1954, Medgar Evers became the first state field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi. As a civil rights leader, he fought to end the racial injustice he experienced growing up in the South.

On September 29, 1962, as measures are taken to safely transport James Meredith to the University of Mississippi where he will enroll in accordance with a U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding desegregation of the institution, President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy make a series of phone calls to Gov. Ross Barnett who has openly defied the Court's ruling. In one secretly recorded call that day, Attorney General Kennedy gets exasperated when the governor shoots down his idea for crowd control.

On January 25, 1977, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing to confirm Andrew Young as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. During the hearing, Young, who had come to national prominence as a leader in the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, makes clear his intention to use the democratic process to ensure world peace. He later became the first African-American to occupy this position.