"It's repression when black Americans are excluded from first-class citizenship..."
Thomas M. Armstrong was a Freedom Rider from the state ofMississippi, who initially attended mass meetings held in black churchesbecause he “knew something extraordinary was happening.” In his book, Autobiography of a Freedom Rider, ThomasArmstrong takes readers on a trajectory oriented around his involvement in thecivil rights movement. Beginning with attending mass meetings out of interest,Armstrong mentions that these spaces gave him the chance to “turn [his] thoughts and feelings about the need to improve conditions for Blacks in Mississippi toward a specific action,” explaining how his involvements would require him to “confront the laws under which my worldview was formed” resulting in a “personal transformation so dynamic that neither I, nor Mississippi, would ever be the same again” (Armstrong 68).
Armstrong, along with many, underwent specific training and workshop sessions, including “citizenship training,” a method conducted in black churches used to mobilize people in the struggle where citizens were required to recruit thousands of people for Poll Tax marches; strategy sessions, held in the houses of famous organizers and his peers and colleagues; and training for nonviolent direct action, which was a strategy pioneered by members of CORE and a higher-level commitment that was required in becoming a Freedom Rider. CORE was comprised of activists that traveled from Washington DC and rode South, recruiting and training ordinary men and women, mostly college students, clergy men, and labor leaders that interested in joining the Freedom Rides with the intent of ending racial segregation in interstate travel, despite the Supreme Court’s declaration of unconstitutional violations in segregation laws, and to raise pressures to end segregation in the South.
In the passage below, Armstrong depicts the systematic and institutional ostracism experienced by black folks across the country, sparking his desire to fight for improved conditions for people in the state of Mississippi:
Repression, not violence, was directed against me. It’s repression when schools are not equal, when blacks cannot live in places they can afford. It’s repression when blacks can’t get loans and jobs to purchase homes and businesses, when blacks are the last hired and the first fired. It’s repression when blacks can’t get proper medical care. It’s repression when black Americans are excluded from first-class citizenship.
Throughout the remainder of his book, Armstrong writes of his time at Parchman Penitentiary, where many Freedom Riders ended up during the movement, and after his release, where he continues to work for SNCC and CORE in organizing protests, voter registration drives, and police protection for Freedom Riders. In the passage below, Armstrong illustrates how the movement has changed many civil rights activists, despite their unrelenting desire for social justice:
After the tour of struggle over civil rights, which was not unlike active duty on the front lines of war, many activists, including myself, returned to our communities withdrawn, introverted, and depressed, because we felt that freedom had not been achieved. Most of us were wounded in one way or another by these experiences, but were offered little, if any, support for the wellbeing of our physical and emotional health… thus, our problems remained unchecked and untreated…. The task of being involved in the movement indeed took a toll on many of us.
Armstrong, Thomas M, Natalie Bell. An Autobiography of a Freedom Rider, Health Communications, Inc. 2011. Print.