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Robert Singleton
Born January 8, 1936, Philadelphia
Arrested July 30, 1961, Train station, Jackson
Then Graduate student, UCLA
Since then Economics professor, Loyola Marymount University
Then and now Married to Helen Singleton
Photographed August 24, 2005, Los Angeles
We were arrested immediately and put in the paddy wagon. That was interesting. There was one fellow by the name of Alan Kaufman, I haven’t seen him since then. He and I were sitting next to each other. A policeman came up on the side and looked in the window and said to me, "You’re a black son of a bitch, ain’t you?"
I said to him, "Isn’t that a beautiful color?"
He just froze. He didn’t know how to respond to that. And Al Kaufman just patted me on the back.
— From Robert Singleton's oral history of his Freedom Rider experience (pdf available at Ole Miss's website):
Mug shot courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Portrait © 2006 by Eric Etheridge
Posted on July 18, 2006, in Freedom Riders