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Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders | 
 enlarge | Author: Eric Etheridge
Creators: Diane Mcwhorter, Roger Wilkins
Publisher: Atlas & Co.
Category: Book
List Price: $45.00
Buy New: $25.70
You Save: $19.30 (43%)
New (31) Used (14) Collectible (1) from $21.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 154130
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.5
Dimensions (in): 12.1 x 8.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 097774339X
Dewey Decimal Number: 323.092273
EAN: 9780977743391
ASIN: 097774339X
Publication Date: May 23, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A beautifully-produced book that celebrates the Freedom Riders, featuring rare-seen mug shots alongside stunning contemporary portraits.In the spring and summer of 1961, several hundred 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 open up the South to civil rights: it was illegal for bus and train stations to discriminate, but most did and were not interested in change. Over 300 people were arrested and convicted of the charge "breach of the peace."
The name, mug shot, and other personal details of each Freedom Rider arrested were duly recorded and saved by agents of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a Stasi-like investigative agency whose purpose was to "perform any and all acts deemed necessary and proper to protect the sovereignty of the state of Mississippi." How the Commission thought these details would actually protect the state is not clear, but what is clear, forty-six years later, is that by carefully recording names and preserving the mug shots, the Commission inadvertently created a testament to these heroes of the civil rights movement.
Collected here in a richly illustrated, large-format book featuring over seventy contemporary photographs, alongside the original mug shots, and exclusive interviews with former Freedom Riders, is that testament: a moving archive of a chapter in U.S. history that hasn't yet closed.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 striking portraits then & now August 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Freedom Rider mug shots were collected by Mississippi's State Sovereignty Commission, which was established to protect segregation in perpetuity. The aim was probably to assure that if the Riders returned to the state, they could be run out on a rail, or perhaps blackmailed if they were later ashamed of their youth.
Who knows why the police photos went into the archives? Mississippi Sovereignty Commission employees were notoriously drunken incompetents (see numerous scholarly articles to that effect) and they needed to collect every shred of evidence of having shown up for work.
When the Sovereignty Commission's files were finally open to the public thanks to years of work by the ACLU, the evidence of their intimidation & spying & incompetence was astonishing.
And yet, even in the mug shots, the strength of character & idealism of the Riders showed through. Photographer Eric Etheridge made it his mission to track down those of the 500 Riders who were still alive, and persuaded many to allow him to do new, artistic, penetrating "mug shots" for posterity.
My regret is that the interviews which went with the portraits were so curtailed by the art book format. I also feel that the intensity of his approach made many people look more forbidding than they are in a more natural setting.
This is a valuable, powerful & revealing book, which presents to the public some of the people who have not been celebrated but who made the history while others got the kudos.
Good, not great -- recommended for those interested in the civil rights movement August 6, 2008
I recently purchased this, having read a review in either the Wall Street Journal or New York Times. It provides background information regarding the Freedom Riders within the civil rights movement and then offers photos of the individuals arrested and profiles of many of them: what they were doing then, why they joined the effort and what they've done since and are doing now.
The book provides a human face to a movement -- something that is very effective here given that the participants spanned various parts of the country, different socioeconomic backgrounds, etc.
The only issue I had with it, which is minor, is that the project is ongoing, which makes the book seem incomplete. That doesn't make me regret the purchase, however. Well worth the money and time.
A masterpiece of bringing the past and present together! June 25, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is a unique piece of literature that gives you a sense of pride for those unsung heroes of the past who made significant history. Great pictures and autobiographical sketches. This should be in every American's household library!
 Portrait: Personal and Provacative June 1, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
My review is not in anyway impartial or detached. Forty seven years ago tomorrow (June 2) myself and five fellow Riders were arrested in Jackson. Three members of our group are no longer with us today, with this disclosure in mind I will now review "Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders" by Eric Etheridge.
The book is beautifully printed and the portraits are of outstanding quality. The text is, of course, minimal but to me at least, provacative in the extreme. The interviews Mr. Etheridge was able to conduct and include were the flesh on the bones. Incidently, I spoke with Mr. Ehteridge and was advised that the interviewing connected with his project is continuing and they will eventually show up on the internet.
This book is a perfect complement to Raymond Arsenault's "Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice"(see my review). For primary history enthusiasts, I cannot strongly enough recommend: Mississippi Department Archives and History (MDAH Digital Collection). To get a feel for the real situation in Mississippi of what segregation meant in that state.
Perusing the portraits was like a portal back into time. Bittersweet memories of accomplishment and failure. Yes, we accomplished the immediate objective of integrating interstate travel and in the ensuing years(at the cost of a lot of blood) removed most overt forms of discrimination. But, sadly if one takes the time and energy to peer into her or his surroundings(locally and globally) the idealism of that time is rarely observed.
WE SHALL OVERCOME?
Inspiring and moving; important American history May 24, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"Here is a picture of the emergent civil rights movement plunging forward, adeptly taking its strategy of nonviolent direct action to the national stage" writes Eric Etheridge in the introduction to this wonderful book.
Etheridge found approximately 320 mug shots of Freedom Riders who had been arrested in Mississippi in 1961. Ironically, the mug shots were warehoused by the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a Mississippi agency formed in 1956 "to protect the sovereignty of the State of Mississippi...from encroachment thereon by the Federal Government." The Commission got the mug shots and arrest records from Jackson and Mississippi State police. (The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission: Civil Rights and States' Rightsis an excellent history of the Commission.)
Etheridge has worked as a magazine story editor and on various Web-related projects. He was able to track down and photograph and interview more than 100 Freedom Riders. Many of the modern photos appear next to the original mug shot, as well as the all of mug shots of every Freedom Rider arrested in 1961 in Jackson.
A sample entry (for Larry Bell) consists of the two photos and the following text:
"Born: March 5, 1942, in Monroe, GA. Grew up there and in Los Angeles, where his family moved in 1950.
"Then: Freshman, Los Angeles City College.
"Since then: Returned to Los Angeles, working as a janitor during the day and attending City College at night. In 1966 was one of the first blacks to go to work for United Airlines in California. When he retired in 2000, he was a flight-attendant supervisor and also trained newly hired flight attendants. Still lives in Los Angeles.
"Quote: The clothing that they gave us in Parchman was a t-shirt that was military green and some green boxer shorts. No shoes, no. And as we began to protest, they took them from us and left us with nothing. Then they took the mattress, so now we had to lie on a metal slab with them little round holes--and boy, you talk about some hard sleeping at night? When you're sleeping on the thing, there's that indentation where your skin goes through that little round hole, and there you are, half of you is like being suffocated and the other half is being cut out, you couldn't sleep any way you tried. So we sat up and we debated all night, and we got more boisterous in our songs."
As Etheridge notes: "The irony here is that the Sovereignty Commission documented the success of the Civil Rights movement instead of defeating it, and left behind a great visual record and the names of everybody involved."
There are two excellent histories of the Freedom Riders:Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movement by Ann Bausum and Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice (Pivotal Moments in American History) by by Raymond Arsenault.
Etheridge's excellent book adds a human element of great power to the story.
***
Reviewer's Disclosure: I worked on various Civil Rights matters in Mississippi between 1961 and 1970 as a law student and later as young lawyer.
Robert C. Ross 2008
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