A FREEDOM RIDER'S STORY

Those of us who participated in the Civil Rights Movement in the sixties all hoped that our efforts would lead to change, but we could never be totally sure of its inevitability. The sit-ins, the freedom rides, the marches, and the voter registration drives are now all thoroughly documented in the nation’s history books. The Movement achieved many lasting things back then, and its triumphs and tragedies are there to be studied and its lessons applied to our present day issues. My story is just one of the hundreds that could be told by the people who did the day-to-day civil rights work, and my hope is that those of you who find your way to this little book will be able to more fully and personally understand the efforts of nameless individuals who made the Civil Rights Movement a truly historical and nation-changing event. 

We must never forget, especially in these times, the power of passionate and determined individuals working together to make change.

A few radio shows made by the White Citizens' Council from 1957-1966 have been digitized and posted online by the library at Mississippi State University., and they document the racial issues and tension of the times. As a result of her Freedom Rider activism, Judith Wright spent time in the Mississippi State Penitentiary in 1961.

Here is an interview with the superintendent of Mississippi State Penitentiary (known as Parchman Farm) Fred Jones. This interview took place sometime in July 1961. 

While incarcerated, the Freedom Riders were often accused of being communists. In this interview, Gary Grady, head of PR for the Mississippi Highway Patrol, talks about how the Rides are a Communist plot, citing Rider Katherine Pleune's trip to Cuba earlier in 1961.