Heroes from a chapter out of civil rights history had two different answers to a question posed by this young man: Would their experiences as “Freedom Riders” affect their view of young black men they might see congregated on a street corner?
One of the civil rights veterans said she’d probably be nervous — while another, Lula White, was sure she wouldn’t be afraid in the least.
White, who grew up in New Haven, was one of the people fielding the question at the main library branch Wednesday night. White spent the summer of 1961 in notorious Parchman prison in Mississippi, two cells away from the electric chair. She and two others spoke at the event Wednesday about their role in winning civil rights for African-Americans, just as the first black man with a good shot at the presidency was addressing the nation in a campaign infomercial.
The three speakers had been Freedom Riders in 1961 — volunteers who rode interstate buses through the Deep South to integrate bus stations, including waiting rooms, lunch counters and bathrooms. On the very day when Barack Obama was born in August 1961, hundreds of Freedom Riders were in jail in Mississippi.
Wednesday’s library event was billed as a “Civic Engagement Conversation” about Breach of Peace, Mississippian Eric Etheridge’s portraits of the Freedom Riders.
Etheridge is pictured with the inside of his book jacket, showing the mug shots of the more than 300 freedom riders arrested in Jackson, Mississippi. He discovered the mug shots, which had been carefully preserved by the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a group dedicated to continued segregation. Then he tracked down 70 of the surviving freedom riders, photographing and interviewing them for his book.
The Freedom Riders were scheduled to go from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans. But after the riders suffered brutal violence in Alabama, including the firebombing of one bus with riders trapped inside (who eventually escaped), the Kennedy administration pressured state officials in the South to protect the riders from further mob violence. This was accomplished by having them escorted out of Alabama and arrested in Mississippi.
Instead of getting out of jail and heading to New Orleans, the activists decided to make their stand in Jackson, and put out the call for others to join them.
Etheridge explained their decision this way: “They adopted the strategy of jail, no bail. They refused to pay their fines, they refused to bail out, and instead they invited more riders to come to Jackson, and fill the jails to overflowing.”
After CORE (Congress of Racial Equality, the group that organized the Freedom Rides) wanted to shut down the campaign due to the level of violence, student activists based in Nashville took up the cause. The three speakers at the library Wednesday were among those who responded. Lula White (pictured), who had just graduated from the University of Chicago and was planning to go to graduate school, said she was outraged by the bus firebombing.
She hopped a bus for Jackson without telling her parents, mailing a postcard to her father along the way that informed him, “If you want to know where I am this summer, I’m in Mississippi, in jail.”
“I guess I was afraid,” she recalled, “but I was also thrilled, in a way. It was so empowering to me to do something that I knew was the right thing to do.” (Click on the play arrow to watch some of White’s reminiscences, captured by Tom Ficklin, at another recent New Haven event.)
Ellen Ziskind (pictured) was also a student in 1961. She was working at the Boston office of CORE, where she had the opportunity to meet three young black men who had already participated in an earlier ride.
She said she had been raised to believe that all people are equal, but she had had very little contact with African-Americans up to that point. But she said within a few weeks, “In a very seamless way, I went from being an observer to a participant. I really didn’t go through any struggle – it was just so clear that if I felt as deeply about equality and civil rights as I did, that I had to put my money where my mouth was.”
Click here to listen to her story about her encounter with a tough-talking white police officer in Jackson who taunted her for being Jewish, when the Freedom Riders were being derided as “Commie Jews.”
Reginald Green (pictured) grew up in Washington, D.C., where he said segregation, while not enforced with “white only” and “colored only” signs, was just assumed.
He joined the Freedom Riders in Richmond, where he was a college student, and headed south. He described what it took to be a freedom rider: “It takes a unique person who — though by nature they may not be non-violent — but were willing to discipline themselves to be able to withstand and go through that process of not feeling demeaned by what is said to you.”
After the protesters filled the jail in Jackson, the rest were sent to Parchman penitentiary. The men were separated from the women. Green (who later became a minister and just retired from a 40-year pastorate in Washington, D.C.) said the singing of civil rights songs helped him through that difficult time.
White and Ziskind and the other women were placed in cells on death row. After spending the summer in jail, they were eventually bailed out. White continued her studies and eventually taught history for 28 years at two New Haven high schools. Ziskind also went to graduate school and became a psychotherapist.
In the Q&A session following their talks, most audience members simply thanked the speakers for their courage and the inspiration they aroused in others “to do the right thing.”
One young man, Joaquim Holloman (pictured at top of story) asked the question about encountering young African-American males on the street.
Lula White joked, “I don’t feel afraid, because remember, I taught high school for 28 years right here in New Haven.
“There’s nobody I’m afraid of,” she said, prompting laughter from the audience.
Ziskind responded much more somberly.
“I probably would feel something… I’m sure I would. And it probably would be different than if I saw the same group, and they were white.
“I think this is one of the tragedies of racism, that I am not without it. I’m aware of it, and what I try to do is notice when I have a feeling in that direction, and I talk to myself. But I don’t think it’s possible to have grown up in this country and not be left with these kinds of automatic reactions, unfortunately.”