Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders by Eric Etheridge, Diane McWhorter (Introduction), Roger Wilkins (Preface by)

The Barnes & Noble Review

In the foreword to Breach of Peace, Diane McWhorter observes that the victories of the civil rights movement have "an inevitability bestowed by hindsight." Eric Etheridge's stunning book collects the mug shots of the several hundred Freedom Riders arrested in 1961 while attempting to integrate bus and train terminals in Jackson, Mississippi, and it is an immediate, gripping reminder of both the risks that were taken in the civil rights struggle and of who took them. The group, half black and half white (a quarter were women), was remarkably young; in their faces we see strength, courage, defiance, dignity, and, occasionally, fear. The mug shots, which were only recently made public, have been compiled by Etheridge, who juxtaposes them with present-day photographs of the Riders and their recollections about the experience. "We were not afraid to die," says one. "I was scared witless," recalls another. With the Jackson jails quickly filled to capacity, Freedom Riders were sent to the maximum-security state penitentiary, where those who refused bail could languish for weeks and months. Many, looking back, speak of the brutal conditions at the prison, but quite a few now view their incarceration as a formative period of growth and learning, with Communists and pastors debating political strategy and with black and white activists, in segregated cells, communicating (and infuriating the guards) by singing freedom songs to each other across the divide. --Barbara Spindel

From the Publisher

In the spring and summer of 1961, several hundred Americans—blacks and whites, men and women—converged on Jackson, Mississippi, to challenge state segregation laws. The Freedom Riders, as they came to be known, were determined to open up the South to civil rights: it was illegal for bus and train stations to discriminate, but most did and were not interested in change. Over 300 people were arrested and convicted of the charge "breach of the peace."

The name, mug shot, and other personal details of each Freedom Rider arrested were duly recorded and saved by agents of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a Stasi-like investigative agency whose purpose was to "perform any and all acts deemed necessary and proper to protect the sovereignty of the state of Mississippi." How the Commission thought these details would actually protect the state is not clear, but what is clear, forty-six years later, is that by carefully recording names and preserving the mug shots, the Commission inadvertently created a testament to these heroes of the civil rights movement.

Collected here in a richly illustrated, large-format book featuring over seventy contemporary photographs, alongside the original mug shots, and exclusive interviews with former Freedom Riders, is that testament: a moving archive of a chapter in U.S. history that hasn't yet closed.

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