Most of these leaders grew up in the communities where they lived and often they had worked for decades quietly building local institutions to support the struggle for justice and freedom. They were truly the front lines of the Civil Rights movement, they paved the way, and many paid a heavy price for their involvement. Medgar Evers and Vernon Dahmer were killed by klansmen, James Meredith, the first black to graduate from the University of Mississippi, was gunned down on the first day of his march, Eylene Quin's home was bombed, Fannie Lou Hamer lost her job and was run off her plantation, Hartman Turnbow's farmhouse was set ablaze by a posse that included a local deputy sheriff.