Welcome to Sojourn to the Past

On May 4, 1961, a group of blacks and whites set out on a highly publicized trip to test a Supreme Court order outlawing segretation on bus terminals. They called themselves Freedom Riders.

Waiting for these buses to arrive at the terminal, an angry mob of white men carrying pipes, clubs, bricks and knives came at the bus. The driver drove off quickly as they saw the mob there waiting, but the mob caught up with the bus again right outside of Anniston, Alabama. The mob smashed all of the windows of the bus and threw a firebomb on board. The Freedom Riders all rushed out of the flames and into the hands of the mob where they were quickly brutally beaten by them.

The second busload of riders were all beaten by eight white men who boarded the bus when it pulled up to the terminal. The most seriously injured was a man named Walter Bergman who suffered a stroke as a result of the beating and was confined to a wheelchair for life.

Top federal officials arranged for the wounded Freedom Riders to fly out of Alabama, and students in Nashville made plans to finish the Freedom Ride. Federal officials tried to discourage them but were unsucessful. Once again these individuals attempting to finish the Freedom Ride were met by a mob – this time of more than 1,000 whites who beat them without police interference.

President Kennedy decided to protect the Freedom Riders since officials had failed to stop them. They rode into Jackson Mississippi unharmed the rest of the way, but were promptly arrested due to the fact that officials were told they could continue to enforce their segretgation laws if they would guarantee the Freedom Riders’ safety.

In September, bus companies were ordered to obey the earlier Supreme Court ruling which outlawed segregation in bus terminals. Once again, young protesters had exposed the injustices of segregation and forced the federal government to defend constitutional rights. As Martin Luther King said, “The real meaning of the movement: that students had faith in the future. That the movement was based on hope, that this movement had something within it that says somehow even though the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends toward justice.”

Minnijean Brown-Trickey (born September 11, 1941) was one of a group of African-American teenagers known as the “Little Rock Nine.” Brown, along with eight others (Thelma Mothershed, Elizabeth Eckford, Gloria Ray, Jefferson Thomas, Melba Pattillo, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls, Daisy Bates, and Ernest Green) faced down an angry mob and helped to desegregate Central High on September 25, 1957, under the gaze of 1,200 armed soldiers. Brown-Trickey was later suspended in 1957 due to an incident in which her bowl of chili was spilled on a white student in the cafeteria; she was expelled in February 1958 after verbally abusing a white female student, even though the girl had provoked her beforehand. After living in Canada for much of her adult life, Brown-Trickey has returned to Little Rock to continue to pioneer civil rights.

During the Sojourn trips, Minnijean conducts a class in Little Rock, Arkansas, on tolerance, bigotry, hate groups, and the ongoing struggle for social justice. Her firsthand experience with blatant racial hatred is uniquely poignant, and as a lifelong activist, Brown-Trickey is able to articulate the encounter with clarity and perspective. Her testimony not only exposes students on a Sojourn to the effects of injustices of the past, but also serves as a noteworthy example of how they can act to prevent future intolerance and discrimination. Students discuss how to develop personal action plans to face intolerance in themselves, their families, their schools and neighborhoods.

The Medgar Evers Memorial: University, MS

Medgar Evers, a Mississippi native, is memorialized at the Lamar Law Center of the University of Mississippi. Evers was instumental to the desegregation of the Mississippi education system. In addition to fighting for his own admission to the school of law, Evers was a key figure in the eventual admission of the first black student, James Meredith, into Ole Miss. Shortly after he made his investigations of the murder of Emmett Till and the Clyde Kennard conviction public, this NAACP lawyer was assassinated in front of his home. He has since been commemorated musically and the 1996 film Ghosts of Mississippi.

Evers is also remembered for his pride in Mississippi. He said, “I love the land of my birth. I do not mean just America as a country, but Mississippi, the state in which I was born. The things that I say…will be said to you in hopes of the future when … we will not have to hang our heads in shame or hold our breath when the name Mississippi is mentioned, fearing the worst. But instead, we will be anticipating the best.”

Sojourners visit the Medgar Evers memorial during the trips to learn about and to honor a man who was determined to fight for equality, both in his local community and for future generations of Americans.