civil rights

Freedom Rider Joan Trumpauer Mulholland arrested June 8, 1961, Mississippi

Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, a recipient of the 2015 National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Award, is a Civil Rights Icon who participated in over 50 sit-ins and demonstrations by the time she was 23 years old. She was a Freedom Rider, participant in the Jackson Woolworth’s Sit-in, the March on Washington, the Meredith March and the Selma to Montgomery March.

For her actions she was disowned by her family, attacked, shot at, cursed at, put on death row and hunted down by the Klan for execution. Her path has crossed with some of the biggest names in the Civil Rights Movement: Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, John Lewis, Diane Nash and Julian Bond.

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Joe Carter, a African American man, prepares to face the Klan after trying to vote, picture was taken by Bob Adelman in 1964

Reverend Carter, expecting a visit from the Klan after he has dared to register to vote, stands guard on his front porch, West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana.

That night vigilant neighbors scattered in the woods near his farmhouse, which was at the end of a long dirt road, to help him if trouble arrived.

‘If they want a fight, we’ll fight,’

‘If I have to die, I’d rather die for right.’

‘I value my life more since I became a registered voter. A man is not a first-class citizen, a number one citizen, unless he is a voter.’

After Election Day came and went, Reverend Carter added, ‘I thanked the Lord that he let me live long enough to vote.’