"Freedom Summer" Unisex T-Shirt

For seven months in 1961, hundreds of Black and white volunteers descended on Southern bus and train stations. These Freedom Riders, as they were called, occupied segregated waiting areas, lunch counters, and restrooms in an attempt to compel the federal government to do what local authorities would not: enforce a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared discrimination in interstate public transportation illegal.

By the end of the summer, over three hundred students, clergymen, and activists, both Black and white, circulated through the Mississippi prison system. By June 15, 1961, the riders were relocated to the notoriously brutal Parchman State Penitentiary, where they were placed on the prison’s maximum security unit. Behind closed doors, the prisoners were tortured with electric cattle prods and wrist breakers, burned with cigarettes, sprayed with fire hoses, and then blasted with industrial-sized fans for up to twenty-four hours at a time. While protesters were exposed to extreme danger and violence during their demonstrations, their visibility, and the rapid circulation of images most protests relied on, offered a fragile semblance of protection. Behind the doors of Parchman, however, the violence was allowed to go totally unchecked.

Every Freedom Rider that came through the Jackson Greyhound Station had their mugshot taken, and every mugshot—more than three hundred by the end of the summer—was catalogued in the offices of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (MSSC). In operation from 1956 until 1977, the MSSC was created to, “do and perform any and all acts deemed necessary and proper to protect the sovereignty of the State of Mississippi . . . [from] encroachment thereon by the Federal government or any branch, department, or agency.” In other words, the Sovereignty Commission maintained segregation by tactics of surveillance, propaganda, intimidation, and violence throughout its existence. In 1977, the organization was officially disbanded. Debates about whether or not to destroy the archives began, an act which would have eliminated a paper trail of complicity in wiretapping and assisting country registrars in keeping Black citizens from registering to vote. It was agreed that the Mississippi Department of Archives and History would seal the files until 2027; however, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a class action lawsuit against the state, claiming the illegal surveillance of its citizens, and won, making the archives public in 1998.

On this t-shirt, is a compilation of mugshots, from the Freedom Riders in Jackson, MS.

This is our tribute to their courage, immeasurable spirit, and sacrifice in the name of creating a "Beloved Community". 

"Good Trouble"

LOWDOWN:

• Color: White
• Fabric: 100% cotton
• Full color DTG print
• Premium Labeling
• Color of image may slightly vary from photo
• Wash with cold water / inside out
• Dry Tumble Low

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 SIZING:

High Point Shoulder (HPS) is measured from the highest point of the shoulder to the bottom hem of the shirt		High Point Shoulder Length
Bust/Width measures across the bust 1” below the armhole, seam to seam.		Bust/Width