Editing Grenada, Mississippi (section)

===Civil rights era===
In 1966, [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] and [[Dick Gregory]] spent a week demonstrating in Grenada against discrimination and for voters' rights.<ref name="Publishing1998">{{cite book|title=Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8h406aDUeL4C&pg=PA65|access-date=23 July 2012|date=15 June 1998|publisher=Turner Publishing Company|isbn=978-1-56311-473-1|page=65}}</ref> During that time, town officials cooperated and protected marchers with local police.<ref name="analavage"/> Six black voter registrars were hired and registered 1,000 black residents during that week. After the march passed through, the county fired the registrars and the town never entered the new black voters on official rolls; they had to start over again to gain official voter registration.<ref name="analavage">{{cite news|author=Robert Analavage|date=August 1966|publisher=The Southern Patriot|title=Which way in Grenada}}, reprinted in {{cite book|author=Clayborne Carson|title=Reporting Civil Rights: American Journalism, 1963-1973|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E8HtAAAAMAAJ|access-date=22 July 2012|year=2003|publisher=Library of America|pages=516–9|isbn=9781931082297|display-authors=etal}}</ref>

As the [[civil rights movement]] continued to press in 1966 and 1967 for voter registration and opportunities in employment, the [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] (SCLC) ran a civil rights organizing project in Grenada which lasted at least 11 months.<ref name="Garrow2004">{{cite book|author=David Garrow|title=Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HecWJnClV3wC&pg=PA563|access-date=23 July 2012|date=6 January 2004|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=978-0-06-056692-0|page=563}}</ref> They worked to register voters and gain concessions for hiring black Americans in local businesses and restaurants. These were still segregated, despite the federal anti-segregation and voting rights laws.

In August 1966, a federal judge ordered Grenada to allow black students to enroll in the previously all-White schools. White leaders used threats of eviction and firing to coerce black parents to withdraw their children from school. While the intimidation caused 200 out of 450 students to withdraw, the remaining 250 students attempted to enter school on September 12, 1966. A group of White people met them at the school and chased them away, pursuing them through the streets and beating the children with chains, pipes and clubs. The group went so far as to beat reporters as well. The group repeated this for the first week of school, while local law enforcement did not intervene. Federal protection for the children began on September 17, and 13 members of the group were arrested.<ref name="EJI 1966">{{cite web |title=Black Students Attacked for Integrating Grenada, Mississippi Schools |url=https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/sep/12 |access-date=4 May 2021}}</ref>