sure you highlighted the key figures in the march the main leaders and that includes martin luther king stokely carmichael and it includes the quixotic man who started the whole thing james meredith and this image was lucky enough to capture the whole -- the three of them. let's go let's backtrack a bit and tell us about the march you are referring to and the title of the book and i chose it. >> guest: the title is "down to the crossroads" civil rights by power and of march two -- to civil rights march that begins in june 1966 and ends three weeks later and in those three weeks you can make an argument that the civil rights movement transforms and it approaches its crossroads. the call for black power is first heard. stokely carmichael unveils that slogan if you will midway through the march and immediately generates controversy. in immediately generates a great swelling of enthusiasm on many local black people and in many ways unites a new direction of black policies. those changes might have happened over the course of time anyway but with the meredith march did was dramatize the shift. .. >> well, if y

martin luther king, stokely carmichael triple what happens when you look at the civil rights movement on the ground? who are the people organizing mass meetings, the glue of the movement? very often women. these historians helped to highlight that. what i wrote in "down to the crossroads," trying to tell the story, the story within the story of all civil rights history from and since it's a great story and it's got martin luther king and is a nonviolent mass march and trying to incorporate the the new civil rights movement to how women are important, how international context is important but that's another aspect. and also lack power is a much more public and slogan at a much more positive slogan than the previous historians attested to. to give you a good example, neil joseph, among his books waiting until the midnight hour. he gives us to see black power and within the number of other stories but he gets to see in the new frame. he pushes us to think of it in terms of its positive aspects, it's uplifting aspects, and the weight shifts the whole movement. >> host: can you speak in m

racially steve and personalities and besides meredith the two that come to mind are stokely carmichael and martin luther king. what was there participation? >> i see them as the three central characters. and carmichael sees it as a unique opportunity as a new chairman of the student nonviolent coordinating committee for sncc founded by young students to push the civil-rights establishment questioning who they are as an organization. for a very slow pace if there is action past but is not forced and they see johnson as the enemy not the allied. they don't care anymore about appealing to the national conscience but are much more concerned with a grass-roots organizers of say don't define themselves by the mass march in a more. when he shot he recognizes an opportunity because sncc has done the most organizing especially the mississippi delta of into largest communities where sncc has a lot of local connections. it is a chance at the same time to showcase the new direction not the key is unknown it catapults into a local celebrity by the end considering the air to malcolm x. especially charismatic he has a gift