I drove straight from Stillwater [OK] to the Jackson train station and got arrested. The police saw I was alone — I hate joining groups — and older than the usual Freedom Rider. I told them I was a veteran — in the 101st Airborne in postwar Japan — and they said, we’re going to take you back to your car, and you can go home.

I told them they were stupid and trying to start a race war in Mississippi, and if they let me go, I would go back to the train station.

They let me go and I went back to the train station. The second time they arrested me they put me in jail.

— From an interview with the photographer.

Mug shot courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

Portrait © 2005 by Eric Etheridge