“Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to “jump at de sun.” We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.”
- Zora Neale Hurston
JCCSF and sf|noir Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Riders
In the spring and summer of 1961, hundreds of 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 put an end to segregation and discrimination through civil action.
sf|noir joined as community partner with JCCSF to support this amazing project from March through May of 2011. The project included a Freedom Riders reunion, an evening of stimulating discussion and a tour of the “Breach of Peace” photo exhibition by photographer Eric Etheridge in JCCSF’s Katz Snyder Gallery.
Photographer Eric Etheridge became fascinated by the Freedom Riders, the three-hundred plus Americans–blacks and whites, men and women–arrested in Jackson in the spring and summer of 1961. They had converged on Mississippi from all over the nation to challenge segregation in bus and train stations. The Supreme Court specifically outlawed such practices, but the stations in the South continued to segregate, defiantly. The Riders were committed to integrate public transportation, even if change came at severe costs: one bus was set on fire and many Riders were beaten savagely. In Jackson, the Riders were all arrested, convicted and jailed on the charge of “breach of peace.”