On the way down to Mississippi, Ganz and the group of SNCC activists stopped in Oxford, Ohio for training in methods of non-violent protest and adjusting to the highly polarized culture of the deep South.

One student, Andy Goodman, left for Mississippi early and on his own. Goodman became one of the three civil rights workers thought to be lynched, a incident which was the focus of the film Mississippi Burning.

Sobered by the news of Goodman's disappearance, Ganz continued on to Mississippi where he worked to send protest delegates to the national Democratic convention. There they would confront the racist Mississippi Democratic Caucus.

The convention was a disappointment for Ganz.

"For those of us in the movement, [our] evaluation turned from Mississippi as the exception in America to Mississippi as an example of America," he says.

And after the convention, Ganz returned to Bakersfield a different man.

"I grew up in Bakersfield but never saw it like I saw it after working in Mississippi," he says. "It was such a transforming experience. I saw things I didn't see before."

Under the leadership of Cesar Chavez, the poor treatment of local migrant farm workers was beginning to attract national attention.

"Cesar Chavez was starting the grape strike, [and] I had a friend who was working with Cesar," he says. "I saw it as an extension of the civil rights movement in California."

Drawing on his experiences in Mississippi, Ganz played a key role in organizing grass roots movements for the Chavez's United Farm Workers (UFW).

In Jacques Levy's Cesar Chavez, the legendary UFW founder remembers meeting Marshall Ganz.

"When I went to Bakersfield ...Marshall was there," Chavez says. "After my talk, he came up to say hello, and someone told me he had just come from Mississippi. I made a point of talking to him some more.

Ganz was eventually elected to the nine-person executive committee of the UFW. And then, in 1968, at the request of presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy, Ganz helped direct a massive get-out-the-vote campaign in California.

After Kennedy's victory in the primary, the senator wanted to meet with the farm workers. Ganz was leading Kennedy through the Ambassador hotel when Kennedy was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan.

"Me and another guy were sent up to get him," Ganz recalls. "Then all of a sudden, [as] we got up on stage heading to the kitchen, the crowd froze [and] started moving backwards. People began shouting, 'He's been shot.'"