The Tougaloo Nine were a group of African-American students at Tougaloo College, who participated in civil disobedience by staging sit-ins of segregated public institutions in Mississippi in 1961. [1]
The Tougaloo Nine were a group of African-American students at Tougaloo College, who participated in civil disobedience by staging sit-ins of segregated public institutions in Mississippi in 1961. [1]
The Civil Rights Movement began slowly in the South, especially in Mississippi. Before 1955, it was mostly legal challenges and litigation, plus isolated protests against the obstruction of voting rights for black Americans. Groups formed during this time period include the Mississippi Progressive Voters' League and the Regional Council of Negro Leadership. In the 1960s, more young people began to participate in the Civil Rights Movement. [2]
Civil rights organizer Medgar Evers considered Mississippi to be "too racist and violent" to conduct lunch counter sit-ins. In 1961 he chose the public library in Jackson as a segregation protest site because it was supported by both black and white taxpayers, rather than being a private business. He recruited nine students from [[Tougaloo College]] for the first action. They were trained in nonviolent resistance, [3] and were members of the NAACP Youth Council. [4] They were led by Joseph Jackson Jr., and included Albert Lassiter, Alfred Cook, Ethel Sawyer, Geraldine Edwards, Evelyn Pierce, Janice Jackson, James Bradford, and Meredith Anding Jr. [5]
On March 27, 1961, the nine students visited Jackson's library for black residents, George Washington Carver, and requested books they knew were not there. [6] They then entered the main Jackson Public Library for white residents, and staged a "read in". [7] [8]
The nine students began to search for source materials for class assignments, and sat down in the library and began to read. At this time, the library staff called the police. [2] They were told "There's a colored library on Mill Street.... You are welcome there." [5] The chief of detectives told them that anyone who wouldn't leave would be arrested. [9] He also asked who the leader of the group was, and Evelyn Pierce said "There's no leader." [4] When they refused to leave, they were arrested and charged with breach of the peace for failing to leave when ordered to do so. [5]
The students were subject to a possible $500 fine and six months of jail. [4] That following day, on March 28, the nine students were released on one-thousand dollar bond. [10]
The day after the Read-In, hundreds of students from Jackson State Teachers College picketed the arrest of the Tougaloo Nine prior to their release. [11] the demonstration, consisting of prayers, singing and chants of "We Want Freedom," lasted for around 40 minutes. [11] The President of Jackson State College, Jacob Reddix, was alleged to have assaulted two demonstrators during the protest. [11] Reddix also threatened to expel student demonstrators. [11] Police utilized clubs and dogs against the students in order to disband the protest. No protestors were arrested. [11]
The next day, March 29, over one hundred black community members congregated outside of the courthouse to show support for the Nine. [10] As protesters applauded the arrival of the Tougaloo Nine at the courthouse, policemen set on the crowd with dogs and nightsticks resulting in the beating of NAACP representative Medgar Evers along with several women and children, two men being bitten by dogs, and an 81-year-old man suffering a broken arm when police beat him with a nightstick. [12] Reverend S. Leon Whitney, a pastor of Farish Street Baptist Church, was among those bitten by police dogs. [10] Medgar Evers later reflected "This act on the part of the police officials brought on greater unity in the Negro community and projected the NAACP in a position of being the accepted spokesman." [13] A Jackson reporter summarized the event by saying, "A quiet community has been invaded by rabble-rousers stirring up hate between the races, and following are the…publicity media feeding an integrated North the choicest morsels from the Mississippi carcass.…The Negro who has so long held the guiding and helping hand of the white may lose that hand as he climbs the back of his benefactor and teacher to shout into halls where he is not welcome. [12] "
Dogs (particularly German shepherds) were used during the civil rights movement by police officers to intimidate (and in some cases harm) protestors. During the trial of the Tougaloo Nine, fourteen police officers and two German shepherds lined the courthouse stairs. The dogs were “set upon” by people when a small crowd, which had gathered in support of the Tougaloo Nine, applauded. The dogs were responsible for biting two black ministers. The Tougaloo Nine trial was not the only instance dogs were used during the Civil Rights Movement. In 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama a German shepherd attacked a 15-year-old named Walter Gadsen during a civil rights demonstration. Gadsden was grabbed by a police officer while the dog he was holding lunged and made contact with Gadsen’s stomach. In response to these events, NAACP partners coined the phrase “rights not bites." [14]
The students appeared in court on March 29, and were not allowed to see their attorneys Jack Young and R. Jess Brown before their hearing. They were fined $100 each and given a thirty-day suspended sentence and year's probation [15] [8] on condition that they “participate in no further demonstrations. [12] "
In protest of the sentencing and the brutality of police towards bystanders, a meeting was held at a local Masonic Temple, at which Julie Wright encouraged other black community members to participate in a "No Buying Campaign". This campaign saw the successful boycotting of white business that discriminated against black people, and chain stores reportedly lost $49,225 in sales tax revenues. [10]
In 1962, partially as a result of this event, the American Library Association membership adopted the "Statement on Individual Membership, Chapter Status and Institutional Membership" which stated that membership in the association and its chapters had to be open to everyone regardless of race, religion, or personal belief. Four state chapters withdrew from ALA: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. [16] [17]
Unlike the Freedom Riders, Friendship Nine, and Little Rock Nine, the Tougaloo Nine are not as well known historically. Sammy Bradford, one of the Tougaloo Nine, said on the occasion of the read-in anniversary: "It seems that everybody is being celebrated and praised for their fine work except the very people who launched the civil rights movement against some of the greatest odds ever faced by man or beast. I'm not saying that the Tougaloo Nine should be rolled out like world-conquering heroes in a ticker-tape parade every year, but they should at least be acknowledged, along with many others, whenever a purported celebration of civil rights activities in Mississippi takes place." [1]
In August 2017, a historical marker on the Mississippi Freedom Trail was dedicated to the Tougaloo Nine. [18] During the May 2021 commencement of Tougaloo College, all nine will receive honorary doctorates. [19]
In July 2022, the Mississippi Braves and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum commemorated the Tougaloo Nine while wearing 1960s era Tougaloo College baseball jerseys with the name of a Tougaloo Nine member on the back along with a presentation featuring Nine members. Living members of the Tougaloo Nine threw our ceremonial first pitches. The jerseys were auctioned off for the Ella Josephine Baker scholarship at Tougaloo College. [20]
Medgar Wiley Evers was an American civil rights activist and soldier who was the NAACP's first field secretary in Mississippi. Evers, a United States Army veteran who served in World War II, was engaged in efforts to overturn racial segregation at the University of Mississippi, end the segregation of public facilities, and expand opportunities for African Americans, including the enforcement of voting rights when he was assassinated by Byron De La Beckwith.
The WhiteCitizens' Councils were an associated network of white supremacist, segregationist organizations in the United States, concentrated in the South and created as part of a white backlash against the US Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling. The first was formed on July 11, 1954. The name was changed to the Citizens' Councils of America in 1956. With about 60,000 members across the Southern United States, the groups were founded primarily to oppose racial integration of public schools: the logical conclusion of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.
Anne Moody was an American author who wrote about her experiences growing up poor and black in rural Mississippi, and her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement through the NAACP, CORE and SNCC. Moody began fighting racism and segregation as a young girl growing up in Centreville, Mississippi.
Tougaloo College is a private historically black college in the Tougaloo area of Jackson, Mississippi, United States. It is affiliated with the United Church of Christ and Christian Church. It was established in 1869 by New York–based Christian missionaries for the education of freed slaves and their offspring. From 1871 until 1892 the college served as a teachers' training school funded by the state of Mississippi. In 1998, the buildings of the old campus were added to the National Register of Historic Places. Tougaloo College has an extensive history of civic and social activism, including the Tougaloo Nine.
Myrlie Louise Evers-Williams is an American civil rights activist and journalist who worked for over three decades to seek justice for the 1963 murder of her husband Medgar Evers, another civil rights activist. She also served as chairwoman of the NAACP, and published several books on topics related to civil rights and her husband's legacy. On January 21, 2013, she delivered the invocation at the second inauguration of Barack Obama.
The Birmingham campaign, also known as the Birmingham movement or Birmingham confrontation, was an American movement organized in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring attention to the integration efforts of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama.
Aaron Henry was an American civil rights leader, politician, and head of the Mississippi branch of the NAACP. He was one of the founders of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which tried to seat their delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
Allen Cavett Thompson was an American politician in the state of Mississippi. Affiliated with the Democratic Party, he served in the Mississippi House of Representatives and as mayor of Jackson, Mississippi.
Coming of Age in Mississippi is a 1968 memoir by Anne Moody about growing up in rural Mississippi in the mid-20th century as an African-American woman. The book covers Moody's life from childhood through her mid twenties, including her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement beginning when she was a student at the historically black Tougaloo College. Moody's autobiography details her struggles both against racism among white people and sexism among her fellow civil rights activists. It received many positive reviews and won awards from the National Library Association and the National Council of Christians and Jews. On October 13, 2023 Anne Moody was posthumously inducted into the Tougaloo College National Alumni Association Hall of Fame at a banquet ceremony held in Jackson, Mississippi.
Colia L. Liddell Lafayette Clark was an American activist and politician. Clark was the Green Party's candidate for the United States Senate in New York in 2010 and 2012.
George Raymond Jr. was an African-American civil rights activist, a member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, a Freedom Rider, and head of the Congress of Racial Equality in Mississippi in the 1960s. Raymond influenced many of Mississippi's most known activists, such as Anne Moody, C. O. Chinn, and Annie Devine to join the movement and was influential in many of Mississippi's most notable Civil Rights activities such as a Woolworth's lunchcounter sit-in and protests in Jackson, Mississippi, Meredith Mississippi March, and Freedom Summer. Raymond fought for voting rights and equality for African Americans within society amongst other things.
Joan Trumpauer Mulholland is an American civil rights activist who was active in the 1960s. She was one of the Freedom Riders who was arrested in Jackson, Mississippi in 1961, and was confined for two months in the Maximum Security Unit of the Mississippi State Penitentiary. The following year she was the first white student to enroll at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi and served as the local secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
This is a timeline of the civil rights movement in the United States, a nonviolent mid-20th century freedom movement to gain legal equality and the enforcement of constitutional rights for people of color. The goals of the movement included securing equal protection under the law, ending legally institutionalized racial discrimination, and gaining equal access to public facilities, education reform, fair housing, and the ability to vote.
David J. Dennis is a civil rights activist whose involvement began in the early 1960s. Dennis grew up in the segregated area of Omega, Louisiana. He worked as co-director of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), as director of Mississippi's Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and as one of the organizers of the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. Dennis worked closely with both Bob Moses and Medgar Evers as well as with members of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. His first involvement in the Civil Rights Movement was at a Woolworth sit-in organized by CORE and he went on to become a Freedom Rider in 1961. Since 1989, Dennis has put his activism toward the Algebra Project, a nonprofit organization run by Bob Moses that aims to improve mathematics education for minority children. Dennis also speaks publicly about his experiences in the movement through an organization called Dave Dennis Connections.
Pearlena Lewis, was a participant at the Jackson Woolworth sit-in, during the Civil Rights Movement.
Ralph Edwin King Jr., better known as Ed King, is a United Methodist minister, civil rights activist, and retired educator. He was a key figure in historic civil rights events taking place in Mississippi, including the Jackson Woolworth’s sit-in of 1963 and the Freedom Summer project in 1964. Rev. King held the position of chaplain and dean of students, 1963–1967, at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. At this critical juncture of the civil rights movement, historian John Dittmer described King as “the most visible white activist in the Mississippi movement.”
Dorie Ann Ladner was an American civil rights activist and social worker. Along with her sister Joyce, she was a leading community organizer in Mississippi for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the 1960s. She was a key organizer of the Freedom Summer Project, which promoted voter registration for African Americans in Mississippi. She participated in the March on Washington and the March from Selma to Montgomery.
Civil rights in the United States include noted legislation and organized efforts to abolish public and private acts of racial discrimination against Native Americans, African Americans, Asians, Latin Americans, women, the homeless, minority religions, and other groups. The history of the United States has been marked by a continuous struggle for civil rights. The institution of slavery, established during the colonial era, persisted until the American Civil War, when the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment abolished it. Despite this, African Americans continued to face systemic racism through de jure and de facto segregation, enforced by Jim Crow laws and societal practices. Early civil rights efforts, such as those by Frederick Douglass and the women's suffrage movement, laid the groundwork for future activism.
John Hunter Gray was a sociologist, professor and an American activist and community organizer in the civil rights movement. He was best known for his participation in the 1963 Jackson, Mississippi Woolworth's department store's lunch counter sit-in. The iconic photo of Gray and Tougaloo College students earned Gray national attention and the nickname "Mustard Man" when a group of whites poured sugar, ketchup and mustard over his head during the sit-in.
Ethel Sawyer Adolphe is a civil rights activist and sociology professor. She is known for her role in the Sit-in movement and contributions to the Sociology of Black Americans.