On March 27, 1961, Joseph Jackson Jr. was alone in a jail cell in Jackson and afraid for his life.
“The silence got to me, because here I am in Mississippi, where Negroes could just disappear without any investigation or without any recourse as to prosecuting whoever the white perpetrator would be,” said Jackson, now 88.
Jackson was a member of the Tougaloo Nine. He, along with Meredith Anding Jr., James “Sammy” Bradford, Alfred Lee Cook, Geraldine Edwards-Hollis, Janice Jackson Vails, Albert Lassiter, Ameenah E. P. Omar (born Evelyn Pierce) and Ethel Sawyer Adolphe staged a sit-in at the whites-only Jackson Municipal Library, near the state Capitol, to challenge racial segregation.
Jackson and Lassiter reflected on their experiences on that historic day with Mississippi Today ahead of the 65th anniversary of the Tougaloo Nine’s sit-in protest.
The group is named for their alma mater, Tougaloo Southern Christian College, now known as Tougaloo College. They were all members of the North Jackson Youth Council of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Medgar Evers, the NAACP’s field secretary for Mississippi, was key to organizing the sit-in. Evers secured them bail money and legal representation. The group spent weeks preparing, doing simulations to mentally prepare themselves to get attacked by a white mob without striking back.
Author Michael O’Brien presents a slideshow of images from his book, “The Tougaloo Nine” during the History is Lunch program at the Two Mississippi Museums on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayJackson said the mock demonstrations prepared them mentally and spiritually for what they were going to face.
“We had to go within, and get in touch with the spirit,” Jackson said.
On the day of, the nine made their first stop at the George Washington Carver Library, the branch for Black people, and asked for books they knew the library didn’t carry.
When that branch didn’t have them, they went to the whites-only library and began reading quietly and browsing the card catalog. The librarians there told them to leave. They refused, and the librarians called the police.
Lassiter, now 84, explained his thought process, saying, “I was a more visible target, tall and slim. I said, ‘Well, let me get over here into the card catalog so I’ll have a notice if a policeman comes around to whack me.’”
When officers arrived and the students still refused to leave, they were arrested for breaching the peace. The plan was for the students from the historically Black college to be bailed out the same day, but Sheriff J.R. Gilfoy, the only person who could accept their bail money, he left town.
They remained in jail for 32 hours.
“We really didn’t know what was going to happen or what they were going to do,” Lassiter said.
“So we just had to be tough and pray.”
While they sat in jail, support for them grew on the outside. After they were arrested, students at Jackson College for Negro Teachers, now Jackson State University, held a prayer vigil for them. The college’s president, Jacob Reddix, and the police broke up the gathering. Reddix, according to Clarion-Ledger reports at the time, assaulted two students, and three students were expelled.
The next morning, Jackson State students boycotted class and held a rally on campus in support of the Tougaloo Nine. Some of them marched toward the jail where the Tougaloo students were arraigned, but never got that far, because it was the same day as celebrations of the centennial of Mississippi’s secession from the Union.
The day after that, the Tougaloo Nine arrived to the courthouse. When a group of supporters gathered nearby and cheered for them, police attacked them with clubs, dogs and tear gas. Among those assaulted were Evers, several women, two children and an 81 year-old man.
The Tougaloo Nine were charged with breaching the peace, and each was sentenced to a $100 fine and 30 days in jail. The jail sentence was suspended on the condition that they never participate in another demonstration.
Though not the first sit-in, this demonstration is cited as a catalyst in the growth of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi. Activists across the state staged their own sit-ins, challenging racial segregation in public spaces. Two of the Jackson State students who were expelled after the prayer vigil were sisters Joyce and Dorie Ladner, who became local activists.
An audience member snaps a picture of Tougaloo Nine member James Bradford during Michael O’Brien’s presentation of his book, “The Tougaloo Nine.” O’Brien spoke to a packed house during the History is Lunch program at the Two Mississippi Museums on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayBarred from demonstrating, the Tougaloo Nine went back to their lives. Lassiter said they became “like family,” even as they spread out across the country.
“One or two students in class made a comment, ‘You guys crazy?’” said Lassiter.
“No, we just did what we wanted to do to make a change, make things better.”
Jackson was originally from Memphis, Tennessee. His early life was marked by poverty and the oppression of Jim Crow. He claimed that when he was 11 years-old, a Greyhound bus driver struck his mother in the face. He said “the most humiliating experience” was knowing they had to board the bus and walk all the way back to the “colored” section, and when they got there looking at the other Black people and knowing they had no way to get recourse. It inspired him to get involved in activism in college.
“We had no one to speak on our behalf, and I never forgot that,” he said.
He began attending Tougaloo College on choral and ministerial scholarships in 1960. He was president of Tougaloo’s chapter of the NAACP Youth Council. Before Tougaloo, he spent his freshman year at Arkansas AM&N College, now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, prior to getting married and working as a pastor among other jobs.
Jackson had to drop out of Tougaloo to support his family, but graduated in 1972 from California State College at Fullerton, now California State University, Fullerton. He went on to remarry and have another child.
He became a Los Angeles County deputy probation officer and juvenile investigator, which he said, “became a ministry to me.” He retired in 2002. Tougaloo College awarded him an honorary doctorate in humane letters in 2021.
Lassiter was born and raised in Vicksburg. His father was a bricklayer and later a pastor, while his mother stayed home to care for him and his eight siblings. He said he had scholarships and worked four jobs to pay for school.
Lassiter recalled how, when 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered in the Mississippi Delta by white men in 1955, his eighth grade teacher pulled all the boys into a group to tell them how to avoid meeting Till’s fate.
“Colored folks, or Black folks, were put down in every way,” he said. “So we just had to scrap and work whichever way you could to take care of your family and to take care of yourself.”
After graduating from Tougaloo, Lassiter joined the military in 1964. He was promoted to the rank of colonel in the Air Force 1990, retiring in 1995. He is married with two children. He believes the country has made a lot of progress.
“We’ve come a long way because there are many individuals who were elevated to positions of leadership in all arenas … who would not be there if we hadn’t made that kind of progress,” Lassiter said.
Willis Logan, left, with Shirley Montage and Maurice Anding, widow of Tougaloo Nine member Meredith Anding Jr., reminisce with author Michael O’Brien at the History is Lunch event at the Two Mississippi Museums on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayAuthor Michael O’Brien, left, presents a slideshow of images from his book, “The Tougaloo Nine” during the History is Lunch program at the Two Mississippi Museums on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayCopies of Michael O’Brien’s book “The Tougaloo Nine” are displayed at the History is Lunch event at the Two Mississippi Museums on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayAuthor Michael O’Brien reads an excerpt from his book, “The Tougaloo Nine,” at the History is Lunch program at the Two Mississippi Museums on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayAuthor Michael O’Brien, left, presents a slideshow of images from his book, “The Tougaloo Nine,” at the History is Lunch program at the Two Mississippi Museums on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayAuthor Michael O’Brien signs copies of his book, “The Tougaloo Nine,” at the History is Lunch program at the Two Mississippi Museums on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayAn audience member snaps a picture of Tougaloo Nine member Joseph Jackson Jr., during Michael O’Brien’s presentation of his book “The Tougaloo Nine.” O’Brien spoke to a packed house during the History is Lunch event at the Two Mississippi Museums on Wednesday, March 25, 2026, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayIn 1962, the NAACP filed a class-action lawsuit against the whites-only library branch, and a federal court ruled that the library had to integrate.
A Freedom Trail marker commemorating the sit-in was erected in 2017 where the library used to stand on State Street.
Most of the Tougaloo Nine shared their stories with writer and independent researcher Michael J. O’Brien’s for his book “The Tougaloo Nine: The Jackson Library Sit-In at the Crossroads of Civil War and Civil Rights.” Published in 2025, it chronicles their protest and the event’s local and national impact.
Jackson believes the struggle for freedom is ongoing, and young people need to learn about their history and “get into the fight.”
Paraphrasing a quote from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., he said: “If you think that full equal rights are going to be granted to us, mainly as Black people, coming riding in on the wheels of inevitability without us really rolling up our sleeves and maintaining our history, it will never happen.”
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