The Grenada movement began in the summer of 1966, after the Meredith March, with daily marches, a boycott of downtown stores and the integration of the city library, led by young local people and SCLC staff including R. B. Cottonreader and Hosea Williams.
School was due to open on 2 September. The board delayed it ten days, 450 Black students had registered for the two white schools, and during the delay employers and landlords pressured families until about 200 of the students withdrew. When classes began on 12 September a white mob beat Black children and their escorts and a news photographer, and the children took refuge in Bellflower Baptist Church. A federal judge ordered state troopers to protect them, and FBI agents arrested 13 white men. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at a mass meeting in Grenada that week. Two months later a federal judge ordered the school system to treat all students equally regardless of race.
The marker at Line and Green streets was unveiled on 13 January 2024 as the newest stop on the Mississippi Freedom Trail. The Grenada County Freedom Movement Legacy Committee pushed for it to answer what one of its members called a legacy of silence about 1966. It carries photographs and text on the intimidation and violence the students faced.
The closest stops worth working into your route