Run: Book One

In addition to the risk of violence facing civil rights activists, the structure of the Democratic party still favored its segregationist wing, leaving Black voters little meaningful choice even when they could go to the polls. Julian Bond decides to run for the Georgia General Assembly, working within the Democratic party rather than leading an outside group. However, the political situation is growing even more complicated with the escalation of US involvement in Vietnam, which sweeps up “hundreds of thousands of American troops, drafted into the Army with little recourse, and too poor to afford college and receive a student deferment…a disproportionate number of whom were Black” (40). The war is a complicated matter for the civil rights movement, as they are generally allied with the Johnson Administration but find the war unjust and worry about the draft’s impact on their own ranks. Meanwhile, Lewis is pushed to the brink of exhaustion in his work as SNCC chair, and his efforts turn toward Lowndes County, Alabama, where Cortland Cox, Stokely Carmichael, and others are forming a group called the Lowndes County Freedom Organization to challenge the Democratic establishment and mobilize Black voter turnout, adopting the black panther as their logo.