Newton Girl Jailed in Mississippi with Eight Freedom Fighters

Newspaper article

By: Anonymous

Date: June 22, 1961

Source: Anonymous. "Newton Girl Jailed in Mississippi with Eight Freedom Fighters." Boston Globe. June 22, 1961.

About the Author: This article was written by an unnamed staff writer for the Boston Globe, a Boston-based daily newspaper with a daily circulation of 474,845. The Boston Globe is the largest circulating paper in the six New England states.

INTRODUCTION

The path to meaningful civil rights legislation in the United States proved to be complex and arduous. The majority of history books mark the beginning of the movement with the May 17, 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision. The Court, in its unanimous decision, declared that segregated schools violated the U.S. Constitution. In doing so, the decision overruled the Court's 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson that called state segregated education constitutional if each party received equal facilities. These cases laid the framework for the 1955–56 Montgomery Bus Boycott—stemming from the staged protest and arrest of Rosa Parks on December 1, 1955—and the 1957 Little Rock Crisis. In Little Rock, Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus refused to uphold the Supreme Court's decision for school desegregation, and he sent Alabama National Guard troops to prevent black students from entering the school. President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) countered Faubus by sending in U.S. Army troops escort the nine black students to and from school.

The fight for civil rights escalated in the following years. The next waves, and manifestations, of the movement came in many forms, and on February 1, 1960, four black college students staged a sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. The North Carolina sit-in was not the first one for the civil rights movement, but it was the first to gain national attention. It occurred in the American South, and the racial complexities of the region sparked more controversy and conflict than protests in other areas. The first sit-in occurred on May 14, 1943, in Chicago, Illinois at Jack Spratt's Coffee Shop. Following the Greensboro sit-in, San Antonio, Texas became the first southern city to desegregate its lunch counters in March 1960. Shortly after the desegregation of San Antonio lunch counters, Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1960. The 1960 act prohibited preventing individuals from voting or registering to vote, and the 1961 Freedom Rides continued these social notions of equality and equal accessibility to life and the nation.

These rides took protestors on buses in an attempt to de-segregate interstate travel in the south. Their agenda stemmed from an earlier one in 1947. The April 1947 Journey of Reconciliation took riders through the border states of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The states bordered the original dividing lines of the Union and the Confederacy, with Kentucky and West Virginia as border states. West Virginia and Kentucky never succeeded from the Union during the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865), but in the war's aftermath, assumed some of the same policies as the southern states. This ride derived from the 1946 Morgan v. Commonwealth case that forbade segregated travel on interstates. In 1947, riders faced danger, but the hostilities they encountered in southern border states only shadowed what occurred fourteen years later.

The Freedom Riders, mainly under the auspices of the Congress of Racial Equality (formed in 1942), set out from Washington D.C. to reach New Orleans, Louisiana on May 17 (the seventh anniversary of the Brown decision). Near Anniston, Alabama, one bus was stopped. An angry mob of about two hundred people stoned the bus, beat its riders, and firebombed it on May 4, 1961. In spite of the violence, the riders pressed forward. The second bus encountered a similar situation at the Birmingham bus depot. While the riders wanted to continue their journey by bus, they were unable to do so because the bus company and its drivers feared being targeted with more violence. The original Freedom Riders, fearing for their lives, ended up flying to New Orleans, but students from Nashville, Tennessee traveled to Birmingham to continue the ride. With pressure from Attorney General Robert Kennedy (1925–1968) the bus company and the Birmingham police agreed to cooperate with the Freedom Riders. On May 20, the riders set out, again, from Birmingham to Montgomery, Alabama. The plan dictated that police would escort the bus and riders into Montgomery, but when they reached the city, police protection dissipated. Riders noted that everything seemed quiet at the bus terminal, until they exited the bus. Then, a mob of angry whites erupted. The ensuing violence forced Robert Kennedy to call in federal marshals to the city, shortly thereafter. Martin Luther King Jr. was escorted by marshals when he flew to Montgomery to meet with the Freedom Riders, but when he attracted a mob of thousands of angry whites Kennedy was forced to ask Governor John Patterson to send in National Guard troops to restore order.

Again, in spite of the violence and harassment, the riders insisted on continuing their Freedom Ride. Against the wishes of Kennedy, they continued their ride to Jackson, Mississippi. Kennedy requested a cooling off period, but civil rights leaders refused to put their fight on hold. When the riders arrived in Jackson, without incident, local police ushered them through the terminal, through entrances reserved for white people, and into police vans. Before the riders left Alabama, Kennedy and Mississippi Senator James O. Eastland had reached a compromise that federal troops would not be used in Mississippi if mob violence did not occur. So when the protestors were arrested, they fell to the mercy of the local courts. The judge sentenced them to sixty days in the state penitentiary. After the Mississippi case, many Freedom Riders tried to continue the journey, but many spent time in jail. Some nearly died or endured severe injuries from the beatings they received for demanding and supporting desegregation. While the majority of the riders, and civil rights activists were black, many participants were white. Newspapers, and other media outlets, sometimes gave a civil rights incident more coverage if a white person was involved.

PRIMARY SOURCE

A 22-year old Newton girl was among nine new "Freedom Riders" who were arrested in Jackson, Miss., yesterday after trying unsuccessfully to desegregate the white waiting room at the Trailways bus terminal.

Judith Ann Frieze of 31 Tamworth Rd., Waban, who was graduated this month from Smith College was one of several whites in the racially-mixed group arrested on a breach of peace charge.

Miss Frieze, who plans to do graduate work in education at Boston University this Fall, is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Frieze.

Her father said early this morning that Judith had phoned him yesterday from Alabama, telling him of her plans to join the Freedom Ride. He told the Globe that he was not aware she had been arrested until notified by newspapermen.

Jackson police reported this morning that Miss Frieze was being held in the county jail and would face arraignment at a later date.

A police spokesman said he was unable to let Miss Frieze talk with the Globe this morning.

The arrest of Miss Frieze and her eight companions brought to 140 the number of arrests during the 29-day siege of Jackson. The nine new riders were ordered arrested by Capt. J. L. Ray after they entered the all-white waiting room and then failed to obey officers' orders to move on.

The only white man in the group, Henry Schwarzchild of Chicago, asked for permission to get a cup of coffee in the lunchroom and Ray told him to move on.

"I believe I have a right to get a cup of coffee," Schwarzchild replied, and Ray told him that he was under arrest. Less than 10 minutes later, the terminal was cleared of the nine riders.

Included among the nine were Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker of Atlanta, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; his wife, Theresa Ann Walker, and Dr. Milton Reid of Petersburg, Va., president of the Virginia Christian Leadership Conference.

In other developments, more Freedom Riders were reported on the way to Jackson today from Berkeley, Calif., via Los Angeles and New Orleans. By taking the route of their predecessors they could reach Jackson no sooner than Saturday.

And in the legal division, two separate court cases are still pending.

U.S. District Court Judge Sidney Mize is expected to rule by Tuesday on a writ of habeas corpus filed by Elizabeth Porter Wyckoff, 45-year-old white rider from New York.

Chief Judge Elbert P. Tuttle of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans told Federal Court there a request from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for an order to keep police from arresting riders would go before a three-judge Federal Court July 10. Atty. William Kuntsler of New York, who is representing Miss Wyckoff in her court case, told Judge Mize her arrest was in "open defiance of Federal authority."

An attorney representing the state, Tom Watkins of Jackson, argued that Kuntsler did not want to go through state courts and Miss Wyckoff was "in jail solely because she wants to be." Kuntsler replied that Miss Wyckoff was serving a short term sentence and would be out of jail before the petitions could go through state courts.

Other riders are expected to ask similar orders if Miss Wyckoff is freed.

Florida Trial Opens The N.A.A.C.P. suit is a class action which asks the court to keep the state from enforcing segregation on all Negroes. It asks that officers be ordered not to molest or arrest Negroes seeking to use white facilities at public transportation terminals and white seats on local and inter-city buses.

Meanwhile, in Tallahassee, Fla., 10 Freedom Riders whose attempts to integrate the city airport's white restaurant landed them in jail go on trial today on charges of unlawful assembly.

Also scheduled for trial are three others who joined the segregations-busting group of Northern clergymen in their sit-in demonstration at the airport.

The eight white persons and five Negroes all pleaded innocent before City Judge John Rudd and have been free since last weekend under bonds of $500 each.

The arrests last Friday ended a sit-in demonstration at the airport which had lasted about 15 hours. The Freedom Riders started the sit-in when they arrived at the airport to return home after a bus ride into the South to challenge segregation practices and found the white restaurant closed. City officials refused to order it opened so they could be served.

SIGNIFICANCE

The Freedom Riders did not make their trip in vain. The months and years succeeding the Freedom Riders brought forth a variety of changes and protests for civil rights. Robert Kennedy encouraged the Interstate Commerce Commission to outlaw segregation in interstate bus travel, and its ruling took effect in September 1961. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned all acts of discrimination in public places. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 made voting easier for southern blacks because it prohibited such requirements as literacy tests and poll taxes. Then, on September 24, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson issued Executive Order 11246, enforcing affirmative action and requiring government contractors to practice fair hiring procedures toward minorities.

The fight for civil rights has continued into the modern era. Even though the Civil Rights Act of 1968 prohibited discrimination in the sale and rental of housing, further steps were needed to ensure fair and equal treatment of individuals. In 1988, the U.S. Congress overrode a presidential veto to pass the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which forced private institutions that received federal funds to practice fair hiring practices. In 1991, President George H. W. Bush signed another version of the Civil Rights Act. One year later in 1992, Los Angeles fell prey to rioting when an amateur cameraman caught police beating black resident Rodney King. These acts, and a plethora of others, have continued to shape the civil rights movement and the social structure of the United States.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Arsenault, Raymond. Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Dudziak, Mary L. Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Hale, Grace Elizabeth. Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890–1940. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.

Moody, Anne. Coming of Age in Mississippi. New York: Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1968.

Periodicals

Morris, Aldon D. "A Retrospective of the Civil Rights Movement: Political and Intellectual Landmarks." Annual Review of Sociology. 25(1999): 517-539.

Web sites

The Library of Congress. "African American Odyssey, The Civil Rights Era, Part 2: Sit-Ins, Freedom Rides, and Demonstrations." 〈http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart9b.html〉 (accessed April 22, 2006).