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Slammed by the Jones County sheriff for cursing and ordered to alternative school, a Jones County student is thriving in a new school

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Slammed by the Jones County sheriff for cursing and ordered to alternative school, a Jones County student is thriving in a new school

The 15-year-old had not played in the September 2022 rivalry football game between South Jones and Northeast Jones high schools in Ellisville, and he was ready to go home. He ignored the security officers who asked him where he was going as he walked toward his car near the rivalry team’s bus.

He also didn’t expect to see the officers and Jones County Sheriff Joe Berlin in the locker room calling out his jersey number. When he and the officers found the teen, Berlin began to yell at him. What the student athlete did outside moments earlier was seen as talking back, and the sheriff would not stand for it.

In the heat of the comment, the teen cursed. The further disrespect led the sheriff to slam him into a locker, according to a federal lawsuit documenting the alleged use of force against the student athlete and other constitutional violations.

โ€œI didn’t do anything wrong,โ€ the teen, who is identified in the lawsuit as CJW, told .

โ€œBut you took it too far,โ€ he said of the sheriff’s actions.

Cyntrelle Woodard-Wells filed the lawsuit Sept. 28 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi on her son’s behalf against the sheriff, 10 or more unnamed officers who were in the locker room and Jones County.

County and sheriff’s department representatives referred comment to Brookhaven Attorney Will Allen, who is representing the defendants in the lawsuit. Allen did not respond to a request for comment. The defendants will have an to answer the lawsuit complaint in court filings.

Woodard-Wells said the Lord’s angels were with her son that night and kept him safe. She’s heard about too many instances of brutality across the country that have led to the or injury of young Black men.

She was reminded of that reality about two weeks after her son’s encounter with the sheriff. On Oct. 6, 2022, 15-year-old Jaheim McMillan, was shot by a Gulfport police officer and died days later in the hospital. In February, a grand jury cleared the officer.

Broken trust

CJW, who is now 16, said before the incident with Sheriff Berlin, he never had a problem with law enforcement and that his mother taught him and his siblings to look to the police for help or protection. He said the experience left him uncomfortable and less trusting.

The complaint alleges violations of the teen’s Fourth Amendment rights, which protects citizens from excessive force by law enforcement and unlawful seizure, and his First Amendment right of protected speech.

The lawsuit demands a jury trial, punitive damages of at least $500,000, compensatory damages of at least $75,000 and attorney and legal fees.

Hattiesburg attorney Matthew Lawrence, who is representing Woodard-Wells and her son, said the incident is not something a law enforcement officer should ever be involved in, especially because the teen didn’t do anything wrong or illegal.

The lawsuit alleges Berlin verbally and physically abused CJW as an act of retaliation because he โ€œmouthed offโ€ to sheriff’s deputies while on his way back to the locker room.

โ€œUnhappy with the reports that a teenage African-American had disrespected law enforcement and the Sheriff’s Department, Sheriff Joe Barlin entered the South Jones High School’s football locker room to confront C.J.W. and let him know he could not disrespect his department,โ€ according to the amended lawsuit complaint.

The lawsuit alleges that the Jones County Sheriff’s Department has a culture and pattern of retaliating against people who use their protected speech rights.

Other lawsuits in federal court filed this year by Lawrence against Berlin and the sheriff’s office allege similar behavior, such as when the sheriff slammed a panhandler up against a car in Laurel on New Year’s Day, according to court documents.

In January, deputies tried to search a Laurel home and ordered one of the residents out of his car and threw him on the ground and searched and arrested him without cause, according to court .

School takes disciplinary action

CJW and his mother thought everything was over after the football game, but it wasn’t.

On Monday at school, CJW said he was called to the principal’s office and asked to write a statement and that he would be sent home. The teen said it felt like the school turned on him and assumed he was in the wrong.

By Wednesday, he was suspended five days for cursing, being out of area after the game and disrupting a school event, according to his mother.

Then in early October, Woodard-Wells and her son attended a Jones County School Board hearing that was to determine whether to send CJW to alternative school โ€“ usually for students suspended for violent altercations โ€“ for 45 days or longer.

She said they weren’t given much opportunity for her son to his perspective of what happened. The board decided on 45 days of alternative school and sent the family a notice in the mail saying they had a right to appeal the decision.

By the end of the 2022 semester, Woodard-Wells decided to withdraw CJW and her other three children from the Jones County schools. At the beginning of this year, they moved and the children started school in a nearby county in south Mississippi.

Superintendent B.R. Jones and School Board Chair Jerry Terry Jr. did not respond to a request for comment.

Five day’s suspension and placement in alternative school are allowable punishments for cursing and disrupting school , according to the Jones County middle/high school student handbook. The handbook includes a disciplinary ladder with seven steps of consequences and it lists various behaviors that will refer a student to the principal’s office.

The five days’ suspension and 45 days of alternative school would have placed CJW between steps six and seven of the disciplinary ladder โ€“ the top end for school discipline and for behaviors such as disrespect and campus disruption, according to the handbook.

‘It’s an overreach of school authority’

Charles Bell, associate professor in the criminal justice department at Illinois State University, studies school suspension and how punishment disproportionately affects Black students.

He said what happened to CJW is in line with the type of punishment that has happened in Southern schools.

โ€œIt’s an overreach of school authority,โ€ Bell said about suspensions in- and out-of-school behavior. โ€œIt’s indicative of over-policing of students and it really creates an environment where students feel unsafe.โ€

Suspension is harmful because it takes students out of the classroom and can make it difficult for them to catch up on assignments, leading some to drop out of school, Bell said. He said suspensions can also affect who work full time and might risk employment to pick up their child from school after a suspension.

When looking at what happened to CJW, Bell said it was problematic that the school district’s handbook mentions students’ rights and responsibilities, but doesn’t define what their rights are.

In Jones County, students suspended for more than 10 days or expelled have a right to due process via a hearing, right to have legal counsel and present evidence and right to cross examine any witnesses. Due process is mentioned in the district’s policy but not the handbook.

Bell said suspension is often the way that students are pushed into the school-to-prison pipeline. Research shows that students who are disciplined in school are at a higher risk of entering the juvenile justice system and later the adult criminal justice system.

One of Bell’s research focuses is on students and families who the school district after facing challenges from school administration. Especially for Black parents, they don’t always know if the next district will be worse for their children because nationally there is a lack of transparency in school disciplinary data, including suspension rates, he said.

Woodard-Wells said one of the driving forces to move her children to a new district was to keep them safe. Thankfully, they have adjusted well, she said.

CJW joined his new school’s football team and started playing a new position. He said the team is helping him become a better athlete, and he participated in other sports after football season.

โ€œIt’s a way better environment,โ€ he said about his new school, team and . โ€œIt’s better for me and my brothers and sister.โ€

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

Buses, notaries and strolls to the polls: How Mississippi college students are overcoming the nationโ€™s toughest barriers to the ballot box

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mississippitoday.org – Molly Minta – 2024-10-30 14:00:00

In 2016, Jarrius Adams’ absentee ballot never arrived at his apartment in Oxford, so the then-19-year-old at the University of Mississippi was left with one option to vote: Skip all his classes and drive four hours home to his polling place in Hattiesburg. 

Faced with a similar situation, the reality is most college students would decide not to vote, said Adams, who now works with the nonprofit Mississippi Votes. 

โ€œFor some students, it’s just as simple as eating three times a day now that you have no supervision,โ€ he said. โ€œTo add voting for the first time?โ€ 

It can be hard to cast a ballot in Mississippi, where state voting laws consistently rank as among the strictest in the nation. 

But for the state’s tens of thousands of college students โ€” many of whom are voting for the first time while also trying to stay on top of homework, classes, chores and a social life โ€” the barriers to the ballot box faced by all Mississippi voters pose an even greater

Mississippi is one of just three states without early voting. This means college students who choose to vote in person most likely have just one day to get to the polls, which are not always on campus. According to a list provided by the Secretary of State’s office, three of the eight public universities in Mississippi lack an on-campus polling location for this election.ย 

When college students turn 18 in Mississippi, they are not automatically registered to vote if they have a driver’s license, a law on the books in 23 other states. There’s no same-day voter registration, which voting experts say can pose an issue for college students whose addresses, and therefore precincts, change more often than other voters. And Mississippi doesn’t have online voter registration for new applicants.ย 

Mississippi โ€œpretty much has all the things that make it hard to vote,โ€ said Jennifer McAndrew, the senior director of strategic communications for Tisch College at Tufts University, which houses the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement.

Nevertheless, colleges and students who have been working all semester long to encourage their peers to vote say that young pursuing higher education are motivated to turn out this Election Day. 

“Our young Mississippians are the future of our state,” Secretary of State Michael Watson, who has visited colleges across the state to talk to students about voting, said in a statement. “It is important for them to educate themselves not just on the voting process, but also the policies and issues affecting the state and nation..โ€

At this semester, the Center for Community Engagement has registered more students to vote before the deadline in an election year than it ever has before: About 350 students, according to William Teer, the program director for student leadership programs and financial well-being. 

Now, it’s just a matter of getting these students to the polls. 

The UM Voting Ambassadors registered students in front of the student union during National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 17, 2024. Credit: Courtesy the University of Mississippi

โ€œEveryone hears about how young people and college students in particular don’t vote in huge numbers for whatever reason,โ€ said Marshall Pendes, a senior math and economics major who serves as a voting ambassador at Ole Miss. โ€œI get a as a student to try and change that.โ€ 

Pendes cited a study that Tufts’ National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement conducted of student voting at Ole Miss, which found that about 15,000 students โ€” more than 75% of campus โ€” were registered to vote during the last presidential election.

That’s in part because of the efforts of voting ambassadors like Pendes. In his four years at the university, Pendes estimated he’s helped register more than 600 students. He’s helped students complete the Mississippi Secretary of State’s paper registration application all across campus, at fraternities and sororities, before and after class, during student government meetings, in the Circle and at meetings for all kinds of political clubs. 

But not so much on in the Grove.

โ€œDuring games, people aren’t really interested in doing paperwork,โ€ Pendes said. 

The goal is to educate students on how, where and why it’s important to vote, Pendes said, whether that’s in-person in the county where they attend school or at home through an absentee ballot. 

โ€œOne of the great things about voting as a college student is you have so many choices,โ€ he said. โ€œEvery person’s situation is different.โ€

Even though college students qualify for an absentee ballot in Mississippi, students say it’s far more common for their peers to register to vote in their college’s county.

โ€œIt’s more common for students to register on campus,โ€ said Avantavis TyMon, an elementary education major at Alcorn State University who is also a Mississippi Votes’ Democracy in Action fellow. โ€œIt’s easier, and it’s more accessible โ€ฆ especially for the out-of-state students who don’t have cars.โ€ 

Alcorn State University is one of five public universities that will host on-campus precincts this year, along with Mississippi Valley State University, Mississippi State University, the University of Southern Mississippi and Jackson State University.ย 

Though Delta State University does not have an on-campus voting location, there is a precinct across the street.

On Election Day, TyMon said he and other student leaders plan to canvass the dorms and ask students if they want to join a โ€œstroll to the pollsโ€ event, which will involve a short walk to the on-campus precinct. 

โ€œIt’s a little bit of a walk from where students live,โ€ TyMon said, adding that in previous years, โ€œwe would meet up and all walk together.โ€ 

Mississippi’s absentee ballot process, which experts describe as onerous, may be another reason college students register to vote in-person in greater numbers. 

โ€œIt is an unbelievable barrier for college students who don’t live in Mississippi or are voting absentee in Mississippi,โ€ McAndrews said. 

First, a voter must request an absentee ballot application from their circuit clerk’s office, according to a step-by-step guide from the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office. Once they the application in the mail, the voter must have it witnessed by a notary, unless they are disabled. When a voter gets a ballot, the next step is finding another notary to watch the voter fill it out.

โ€œYou can do your taxes in one day,โ€ Adams said. In Mississippi, โ€œyou cannot vote by mail in one day.โ€ 

Even some notaries think Mississippi’s absentee ballot law could be eased. 

Bill Anderson, the vice president of government affairs at the National Notary Association, said that, of the handful of states that involve notaries in the process, Mississippi’s law is the strictest

โ€œYou’d expect us to be supportive of states that allow or create a role for notaries in absentee ballots,โ€ Anderson said. โ€œWe think this is a good idea. โ€ฆ These states, including Mississippi, want there to be a layer of security that is absent for voters voting absentee.โ€ 

Nonetheless, Anderson said he is hoping to work with Mississippi lawmakers next year on some issues he sees with what he called the โ€œnon-notarial functionsโ€ required by the state’s law. 

For instance, Mississippi’s law requires notaries to sign the back of the envelope containing the voters’ ballot, something Anderson said is not expressly permitted by the notary laws of his home state in California. And Mississippi doesn’t oblige notaries to affix their seal to the envelope, which Anderson said other states require notaries to do. 

โ€œYou can just imagine the poor voter,โ€ Anderson said. โ€œThey’re out here, and the California notary is trying to find their state law and doesn’t want to get in trouble with the Secretary of State of California and says look โ€ฆ I’d love to do this for you, but I can’t.โ€ 

For his part, Pendes said he thinks students who want to vote absentee are motivated to find notaries, which can be relatively easy to do on a college campus. 

โ€œIn my experience, people usually aren’t defeated by the notarization part,โ€ he said. 

At Mississippi State, the student government association and the Division of Student Affairs held an event called โ€œNotary Dayโ€ last . More than 70 students had their absentee ballots notarized, said Carson McFatridge, the student association president. 

โ€œWhen I think of a notary, I think of someone at the bank,โ€ she said. โ€œThat can be a challenge just not knowing who has the capability to do that โ€ฆ so it was really, really cool to be able to see people like our dean of students volunteer an hour of his time to sit out there and help people.โ€ 

McAndrew said it’s important for colleges to make voting as a student as simple as possible, because even the perception that voting is complicated is itself a barrier.

โ€œThere’s so much out there about strict voter ID laws, it becomes this ghost barrier on top of the actual barrier,โ€ McAndrew said. 

โ€œAnything we can do not only to reduce the complexity but to reduce the intimidation and anxiety factor is really important,โ€ she added. 

To that end, many professors have canceled classes to give students the day off to vote, and universities across the state are offering rides to the polls. At Ole Miss, buses will leave from the Walk of Champions and behind Ole Miss Bike Shop from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day. 

This does more than help students without cars, Pendes said. 

โ€œThe other thing to consider is that parking spaces on our campus are extremely hard to come by,โ€ he said. โ€œDo you want to move your car and lose your parking space to try to go vote? Because that isn’t necessarily something that’s always guaranteed to you, especially in commuter spaces.โ€ 

This semester, the Center for Community Engagement was also successful in finding a solution to an issue that has troubled student voters for years at Ole Miss, which is that residence halls and Greek Life houses are not considered acceptable mailing addresses at which to register. 

Teer, the program director, said he worked with the Lafayette County Circuit Clerk’s office to establish the center as a mailing address for students who live on campus. 

โ€œWe’ve had students coming in because they’ve received an email from us that their voter information cards had arrived,โ€ Teer said. 

Every Thursday, students at Alcorn State held a voter registration event at the campus chapel. TyMon also helped organize a voter registration block party that featured food trucks. These efforts resulted in more than 400 students registering to vote. 

TyMon said he thinks student leaders have an important role to play in setting an example for their peers. 

โ€œWhen they see that we’re serious, they get serious,โ€ he said.

That’s why A’Davion Bush, a sophomore political science major at Ole Miss, is going to drive home to Indianola not just to vote, but to volunteer at the polls. The Mississippi Votes’ Democracy in Action fellow said he’s going to post about his plan on social media so his friends who are still in high school will be inspired to vote when they turn 18.  

โ€œThe older population is not doing anything to influence young people in my county,โ€ he said. 

McFatridge, the student body president at Mississippi State, said she recently registered a student to vote who had just become a U.S. citizen, which reminded her that while voting is a right, it’s also a privilege not had by everyone around the world.

Not voting in the U.S. is โ€œkind of like looking a gift horse in the mouth,โ€ McFatridge said. 

โ€œIt’s a silly phrase,โ€ she added, โ€œbut I truly believe that when given the to share your own and beliefs, I don’t know why you wouldn’t.โ€ 

An Arkansan, McFatridge had intended to vote early in her hometown of Searcy during fall break, but a family emergency prevented that. 

It’s too late for her to order an absentee ballot, so now she’s driving home to vote before Election Day, 4.5 hours away.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Man with no criminal charges died from a complication of diabetes in Alcorn County Jail

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mississippitoday.org – Gwen Dilworth – 2024-10-30 11:52:00

James Tatsch had no criminal charges pending against him when he died in jail from a complication of diabetes. 

Tatsch, who was 48 years old, was jailed while waiting on mental health treatment during Mississippi’s involuntary commitment process. When he was found unresponsive in his cell in Corinth on Jan. 17, he had been detained for 12 days.ย 

His death was caused by diabetic ketoacidosis, a condition that develops when a person’s body does not have enough insulin for blood sugar to provide energy to its cells, according to the findings of the state medical examiner’s autopsy

Jail staff knew Tatsch was diabetic, Alcorn County Sheriff Ben Caldwell told . He does not believe the jail is at fault for Tatsch’s death. 

โ€œFrom everything that I’ve seen and all the reports and all the information that I’ve checked on, it appears that my staff was doing what they needed to do,โ€ he said. โ€œIt’s a tragedy.โ€

Alcorn County Sheriff Ben Caldwell Credit: Alcorn County

Alcorn County Correctional Facility does not have a written or uniform policy for treating diabetic , said Caldwell. Rather, the facility’s medical staff โ€“ a doctor, registered nurse and a licensed practical nurse โ€“ creates an individualized procedure of care for each patient. 

Death by diabetic ketoacidosis is preventable, said nurse practitioner KC Arnold, owner of The Diabetes Center in Ocean Springs.

Illness, missed insulin shots, a clogged insulin pump or the wrong insulin dose are the most common causes of diabetic ketoacidosis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Arnold said people in custody with diabetes are often given a combination of intermediate and rapid-acting insulin twice a day. 

โ€œIt’s not the best care, but that would keep him out of (diabetic ketoacidosis) if he had known diabetes,โ€ she said. 

READ MORE: Committed to Jail series

Jails and prisons should have written policies and procedures for diabetes care and provide to medical and non-medical staff, said the American Diabetes Association in a statement published earlier this year.ย 

โ€œThese policies would ensure that detainees have timely access to necessary treatment at all appropriate levels of care,โ€ the statement said. 

Tatsch is one of at least 15 people who have died after being jailed through Mississippi’s involuntary commitment process. Nine of them committed suicide. 

During the process, people who pose a threat to themselves or others can be ordered to county jails while they await mental health evaluation or treatment. 

Laws allowing people with mental health concerns to be involuntarily taken into custody exist in every state. But reporting from Mississippi Today and ProPublica revealed that no other state jailed people in the civil commitment process without criminal charges with such frequency, and often for days or weeks. 

The state revised its civil commitment law earlier this year. It now requires a screening to be completed by the local Community Mental Health Center before a person is jailed and for other treatment options be considered first.  

Because Tatsch’s death is under investigation, Mississippi Today could not access jail records. Caldwell, however, provided an account of what happened that day.ย ย 

The morning of the day he died, Tatsch began โ€œacting erratically,โ€ Caldwell said. He was moved from a standard housing unit to the jail’s โ€œsegregationโ€ area, where he was locked in a cell alone and checked on by guards every 30 minutes. 

His blood sugar was checked at 12:08pm. It was high, and he was given insulin. 

A guard checked on Tatsch, spoke to him and observed him eating from a jail-issued snack bag less than half an hour before he was found unconscious. He was found unresponsive within 30 minutes and transported to Magnolia Regional Health Center, where he was pronounced dead.ย 

The incident time was 10:40pm, according to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation incident report.

Caldwell was not certain what other diabetic care Tatsch received on the day of his death. He first told Mississippi Today that the midday blood sugar check was the result of a complaint made by Tatsch, but later said it was a regular mealtime test. He was unsure when Tatsch’s blood sugar was checked at other times during the day. 

He said he could not share details about Tatsch’s treatment regimen or say when he last received insulin because he turned all relevant documents over to the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, including statements from officers on duty. 

The agency began looking into Tatsch’s death after Caldwell asked for an investigation. He made the request less than an hour after Tatsch’s death occurred, according to the incident report. 

The investigation will be presented to a grand jury, or a group of citizens who review evidence to determine whether someone should be tried for a , in November. 

The grand jury proceeding was requested by former Alcorn County District Attorney John Weddle. Current District Attorney Jason Herring said he could not comment on pending matters, but that the county presents all in-custody death cases to a grand jury. 

Caldwell reviewed the incident for any possible policy changes that could have prevented the death but found none, he said. 

โ€œThis is a tragedy, but this is not representative of the care they provide the inmates here. That’s our number one priority, obviously the safety and security of the public as well as the inmates that are here and their safety and wellbeing.โ€

Arnold said symptoms of diabetic ketoacidosis arise before a patient is in critical condition and can include vomiting, frequent urination, weakness or nausea.

โ€œAny medical practitioner would recognize that,โ€ she said. 

Greta Martin, litigation director for Disability Rights Mississippi, said she sees a statewide failure in jails and prisons to properly treat diabetes, which qualifies as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

people with diabetes often do not receive timely medication, regular chronic care check-ups or prescribed diabetes diets, said Martin. 

โ€œDiabetes unchecked and untreated can cause a myriad of problems that could be significant and threatening,โ€ she said. 

Seventeen people have died in state custody from diabetes-related causes since 2015, according to Department of Corrections records. This number does not include people who are in counties’ custody, like Tatsch.

Jail and medical personnel have been held liable for an incarcerated person’s death from diabetes in Mississippi before. 

In 2022, agreed to pay a $2.8 million settlement after an insulin-dependent man in George County Regional Correctional Facility went seven days without insulin. The jail’s nurse was sentenced to 15 years for manslaughter

Sheriffs are responsible for providing proper medical care to people incarcerated in county jails, including people held in jail during civil commitment, said Cliff Johnson, the director of Mississippi’s MacArthur Justice Center, an organization that advocates for people who are incarcerated.

โ€œSheriffs have consistently complained to us that the burden of Mississippi’s inadequate mental health system has fallen on them,โ€ he said. 

โ€œThey concede that they’re not trained to take care of people with mental illness and they wish they didn’t have to. The reality for sheriffs โ€ฆ is that they owe everyone in their jail a duty to keep them safe, to provide them with the medical care and the mental health care the requires.โ€

It is unclear if Tatsch was ever evaluated by a mental health professional or had a hearing during his 12-day incarceration. At the time, the law required a hearing to be held within seven to 10 days.ย 

Alcorn County Chancery Clerk Keith Settlemires, whose office is responsible for coordinating the civil commitment process, declined to speak to Mississippi Today about Tatsch’s case. 

Jason Ramey, the executive director of Region IV, the local community mental health center that provides screening during the civil commitment process, said that Region IV has communicated with the Alcorn County Chancery Clerk’s office about the services the center provides, including a crisis stabilization unit.

Crisis stabilization units offer stabilization and treatment to people with severe mental illness or who are in psychiatric crisis and provide an alternative to incarceration for people in the civil commitment process. 

Mississippi Today reached out to several of Tatsch’s members but did not reach any who knew him personally. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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On this day in 1870

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-10-30 07:00:00

Oct. 30, 1870

Transportation protests in America over racial segregation began before the and lasted into the 1960s. Undated photograph shows a bus station in Durham, North Carolina. Credit: Library of

Three Black challenged the racist system of segregation in Louisville, Kentucky. They paid their fares and sat up front on a trolley โ€” only to be challenged by the driver and a white passenger. 

Robert Fox, an elderly mortician, said he and his business partners had the same right to ride as whites. The driver alerted his central office, and soon a group of white drivers dragged them off the trolley, kicking them and shouting racial slurs. the trio, whose lawyer argued that their disorderly conduct arrests had taken place because of their race. 

โ€œThey are good citizens,โ€ their lawyer said, โ€œand they ask for simple justice and nothing more.โ€ 

The judge fined the trio $5, and Black passengers boycotted the trolley. Fox sued the Central Passenger Railroad Company, which ruled in his favor and awarded him $15. Inspired by the victory, Black passengers began staging โ€œride-insโ€ across the . The protests led to clashes on the city streets, and Louisville’s intervened. Streetcar companies agreed to desegregate the trolleys, and the Black citizens rejoiced. They had really won.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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