Gallery 5 - A Tremor in the Iceberg

Community-based voter registration projects followed sit-ins and freedom rides. Sit-ins fired up young people, and the joining of two generations energized the Mississippi Movement. SCLC volunteer Bob Moses came to the Delta in 1960 to recruit activists for SNCC’s fall conference. In Cleveland, he met Amzie Moore, who introduced Moses to the state and its people. Moore had grown frustrated with slow-moving legal challenges and saw the student movement as a chance for real progress on voter registration.

As they tested the new Supreme Court ruling banning segregation in interstate travel, getting to Jackson was not a given. The Alabama National Guard escorted the bus to the state line, where eight Mississippi National Guardsmen boarded. From there, the Mississippi Highway Patrol escorted the bus along Highway 80 to Jackson. There, police officers awaited the bus at the Trailways terminal. White volunteers sat in the Black waiting area and Black volunteers sat in the White waiting area. When the volunteers refused to move, they were arrested and charged with “breach of peace.”

To avoid further bloodshed (and bad publicity) in Mississippi, Robert Kennedy worked out a plan with Mississippi Senator James Eastland—police would guarantee the safety of the Freedom Riders and in exchange the Kennedy administration would not insist on enforcement of the Supreme Court’s ruling on interstate travel. By the end of the summer, 328 Freedom Riders had rolled into Mississippi by bus, train, and plane.

On May 4, 1961, the Freedom Riders set out from Washington, DC on a Greyhound bus. The test was the brainchild of James Farmer and CORE (Congress of Racial Equality). Farmer recruited young people, Black and White, to participate in an integrated bus ride from Washington to New Orleans. Along the way, they intended to integrate bus station waiting rooms, lunch counters, and public restrooms, testing enforcement of a Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation.

No one took jail time lightly in Mississippi. Police brutality against prisoners, especially Black activists and White “outside agitators” was real. Those arrested faced physical harm or worse. When the Freedom Riders refused to admit guilt or pay their fines, they were sent to Parchman, where they spent 39 days (the most they could serve and still appeal their convictions). Guards abused them, took their mattresses, and firehosed them for singing freedom songs. Closed windows baked cells during the day. Huge exhaust fans chilled cells at night.

The walkout at Burglund High School brought the McComb Movement to a fever pitch. The event was the result of the desire of some SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) members to engage in direct action protests. In late August of 1961, Burglund High students Ike Lewis and Brenda Travis were arrested for sitting in at the Greyhound bus terminal. They spent 30 days in jail. Upon their return to school on October 4, Burglund Principal Higgins refused to admit them. In protest, 116 students walked out and marched to city hall and were expelled.