Joan Trumpauer Mulholland

Joan Trumpauer (Mulholland), Jackson Mississippi, 1961

In the summer of 1961, the historic Freedom Riders, a group of black and white activists, challenged the legally segregated buses and bus stations of the south by refusing to travel separately. Thirteen riders left on two Greyhound buses en route to New Orleans from Washington, D.C.[9]

Anniston, Alabama was the most dangerous of all towns where the riders stopped. On Mother's Day, the two buses arrived in Anniston and were set on fire. Churchgoers and their children were reportedly watching as the riders attempted to escape the flames of the bus, only to be beaten by the townspeople until the police stopped the chaos. After this event, many thought they saw the end of the Freedom Rides. Instead, a call was made to Mulholland in D.C. and Diane Nash, asking for more riders.[4]

Mulholland, along with Stokely Carmichael (the activist and later SNCC chairman,who would later be known as Kwame Turre), Hank Thomas, and many others, took a different freedom ride. The group took a plane to New Orleans, then rode on the Illinois Central train to Jackson, Mississippi, with members of the Congress of Racial Equality.[4]

After the new group of Freedom Riders were arrested for refusing to leave a bus waiting area in Jackson, Mulholland and others were put inside a paddy wagon and taken to Parchman Penitentiary in Mississippi, a jail in the Delta, not far from where Emmett Till had been murdered in 1955. This prison had a reputation for violence, and several inmates had disappeared. At the time, June 1961, Mulholland was 19, and she refused to pay bail.[4]

On the ride there, the driver stopped at a house in rural Mississippi. Mulholland and the other activists reportedly began to fear for their lives. In retrospect, Mulholland later recounted, the driver had probably needed a pit stop and only wanted to frighten the riders.[4]

When they got to Parchman, the women were issued coarse denim black-and-white striped skirts and t-shirts. Prior to being locked in cells, the women were stripped and each given a vaginal examination. The matron cleansed her gloved hand, prior to each exam, in a bucket of liquid that Mulholland said smelled like Lysol. In prison, Mulholland was segregated from her fellow Nonviolent Action Group (NAG) friends. She described the experience as isolating, with everyone unaware of what was going on.[4]

They were housed on death row for two months. "We were in a segregated cell with 17 women and 3 square feet of floor space for each of us," she recalled in 2014.[5][10][11]

Many of the freedom riders remained behind bars for about a month, but Mulholland had no plans and no place to go until school opened in the fall. She served her two-month sentence and additional time to work off the US$200 (equivalent to $1,959 in 2022) fine she owed. Each day in prison took three dollars off the fine.[11]

Soon after Mulholland's release, Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Hamilton E. Holmes became the first African-American students to enroll at the University of Georgia. One night an angry mob gathered outside Hunter's dormitory, causing significant property damage and gaining media attention for the university and the state. After the riots, even previously pro-segregation officials condemned the rioters. Mulholland thought, "Now if whites were going to riot when black students were going to white schools, what were they going to do if a white student went to a black school?" She then enrolled in Tougaloo College in Jackson, where she met Medgar Evers, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Reverend Ed King, and Anne Moody.[12]

When Dr. King came to Tougaloo College to give a speech, it was Mulholland who escorted him to the science building where he was to speak. Mulholland states that King was the hero of the movement, but many often got frustrated with him for preaching all of the time.[4] Two years later, Mulholland was accepted into Delta Sigma Theta[8]

Mulholland has stated that, during her attendance at Tougaloo College, crosses were occasionally burned on campus. Several of the local authorities were worried that something might happen between her—a white woman—and one of the black men. There were various attempts to shut down Tougaloo but the school remained open because its charter predated the Jim Crow laws.[4]

She received many letters scolding or threatening her while she was attending Tougaloo. Her parents later tried to reconcile with their daughter, and they bribed her with a trip to Europe. She accepted their offer and went with them during summer vacation. Shortly after they returned, however, she went straight back to Tougaloo College.[4]

Mulholland participated in the May 28, 1963 sit-in at the Woolworth lunch counter in downtown Jackson with 13 other activists, such as fellow Tougaloo student Anne Moody, professor John Salter, and white Tougaloo chaplain Reverend Ed King. The activists were beaten, smeared with condiments, and berated. The crowd yelled at the students, screaming the phrase "communist" at them constantly. One man pointed out of the crowd to Mulholland, calling her a "white nigger".[5][12][13]

Around the time Mulholland arrived at Woolworth's, Tougaloo student Memphis Norman had been dragged to the floor by former police officer Benny Oliver, who wore tennis shoes, and was being kicked repeatedly. The assault continued until an undercover police officer arrested both Norman and Oliver. Moody and Pearlena Lewis were both pulled from their seats later on. Moody had been thrown against the counter. Around this time, Mulholland noticed a man walk past Moody with a knife and called out, "Annie, he's got a knife." She then walked to the counter and sat down next to Moody and Lewis. People started to yell slurs such as "traitor," "communist," "black bitch," and "white nigger." Mulholland was lifted by her waist by one man and Moody was lifted from her stool by two high school boys. Both of the girls were dragged by their hair out of the store.[12]

Mulholland's assailant was arrested outside and she was allowed to go free. She returned to the lunch counter with Moody. At that moment there were two whites and two blacks, all female. Soon Salter arrived, joining the two women at the counter. The crowd grew more violent. Salter received a cigarette burn on the back of his neck, he was hit in the jaw with brass knuckles, and a pepper–water mix was thrown into his eyes. She started to fear for their lives just before things started to draw to a close. The sit-in ended at about 2 p.m. when the president of Tougaloo College got a hold of the National Office of Woolworth, who advised the store manager to shut the store down.[4][12]

Bill Minor, then the Mississippi correspondent covering civil rights events for the New Orleans Times-Picayune and who was there that day, says the Jackson Woolworth's sit-in was "the signature event of the protest movement in Jackson, the first one with real violence."[14]

On August 28, 1963, Mulholland attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.[4] She rode to Washington, D.C., with Moody, the Rev. Ed King, and his wife. On their return, the group stopped in a federal park in Tennessee, where they spent the night. The next morning, Moody and Mulholland woke before the Kings and went to the bathroom where they found showers. They used showers one at a time and, having forgotten towels, used the paper towels in the bathroom to dry each other off. The women were discovered in the bathroom as two white women walked in, disturbed by Moody and Mulholland's actions. Moody and Mulholland returned to the now awake Kings, told them the story, and were quickly rushed from the park. Moody recalled seeing a group of white women come into view and watch just as the integrated car drove away.[12]

A few days after the March on Washington, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) set off a bomb at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, just before Sunday morning service. The bomb injured 15 people and killed four children.[15] Mulholland took a piece of glass from the explosion, glued it to black ebony wood, and fashioned a necklace out of it. She also carried a piece of the glass in her wallet for years, feeling it every time she reached for her change.[4]

Mulholland gave Michael and Rita Schwerner an "orientation" on what you need to know about being a white activist in the state of Mississippi. The next day, Michael was killed, along with James Chaney and Andrew Goodman. Mulholland explained that she is aware that nothing she could have added in the information she gave Schwerner would have prevented what had happened.[4]