Collection Details:

Collection Name and Number: Tougaloo Nine Collection (T/031).
Creator/Collector: Tougaloo Nine; and others.
Date(s): 1960-1968; 1983-1991.
Size: 1.47 cubic feet.
Language(s): English.
Processed by: Tougaloo College staff; MDAH staff, 2005.
Provenance: Loan of Tougaloo College of Madison County, MS, in 2004.
Repository: Archives & Records Services Division, Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

 

Rights and Access:

Access restrictions: Collection is open for research. Box 3 contains fragile original materials and is restricted; reference photocopies must be used instead.

Publication rights: Copyright assigned to Tougaloo College. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to MDAH Reference Services, Attention: Tougaloo College Civil Rights Collection. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Tougaloo College as the owner of the physical items and as the owner of the copyright in items created by the donor. Although the copyright was transferred by the donor, the respective creator may still hold copyright in some items in the collection. For further information, contact Reference Services.

Copyright notice: This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code).

Preferred citation: Tougaloo Nine Collection (T/031), Tougaloo College Civil Rights Collection, Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

 

History:

The Tougaloo Nine

The Tougaloo Nine were a group of students who attended Tougaloo Southern Christian College (now Tougaloo College) in Tougaloo, Madison County, Mississippi, during the early 1960s. The members of the group were Ethel Sawyer (Adolphe), Meredith Coleman Anding, Jr., James Cleo Bradford, Alfred Lee Cook, Jeraldine Edwards (Hollis), Joseph Jackson, Jr., Albert Earl Lassiter, Evelyn Pierce, and Janice L. Jackson (Vails).

On March 27, 1961, the Tougaloo Nine students staged the first sit-in at the downtown branch of the public library in Jackson, Mississippi. The municipal library system was segregated, and certain branches were off-limits to African Americans. The nine students were members of the North Jackson Youth Council of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). When the librarians asked the students to leave, they refused to obey and were arrested and jailed for thirty-two hours. The Tougaloo Nine students were tried in municipal court and found guilty of disturbing the peace. They were each given a thirty-day suspended sentence and ordered to pay a fine of one hundred dollars.

Demonstrations and protests erupted in Jackson following the Tougaloo Nine incident. On March 27th, fifty students from Jackson State College (now Jackson State University) met that evening to protest the arrest and jailing of the Tougaloo Nine students. Police officers were sent to break up the campus demonstration. The next day, three hundred students from Jackson State and Tougaloo assembled at College Hill Baptist Church in Jackson and staged another demonstration. On March 29th, one hundred Jackson residents assembled to protest the trial of the students. Police officers were again dispatched to break up the demonstration, and their crowd-control measures included the use of police dogs.

In response, many state legislators argued for the allocation of additional funds to the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, an agency that promoted segregation and investigated the activities of civil-rights groups. State Senator Earl Evans, Jr., however, believed that sit-ins were inevitable and criticized the Sovereignty Commission for provoking civil-rights activism. In contrast, Tougaloo president Adam Daniel Beittel acted benignly towards the students, allowing them to return to school and refusing to punish them, even when pressured to do so by white business and church leaders in Jackson. Tougaloo chaplain John Mangram, advisor to the Tougaloo Nine, publicly supported the students.

During the 1960s, Tougaloo students worked closely with the NAACP Youth Council and were involved in various civil-rights protests. In the fall of 1961, Tougaloo students held a rally to protest segregation practices at the Mississippi State Fair. A year later, Tougaloo students and their advisor, Professor John R. Salter, Jr., demonstrated against segregated businesses on Capitol Street in downtown Jackson. In 1963, an integrated group of Tougaloo students staged a sit-in at the Woolworth lunch counter in Jackson to protest against unfair seating at the facility. That same year, three Tougaloo students, Ida Hannah, Bette Poole, and Julie Zaugg, attempted to integrate the Capitol Street Methodist Church in Jackson. The students were arrested, jailed, fined, and sentenced to a year in jail on trespassing charges. They appealed their convictions in United States District Court case Bette Poole, et al., v. Ross R. Barnett, et al.

 

Scope and Content Note:

This collection consists of correspondence, legal documents, legislation, pamphlets, and newsclippings pertaining to the Tougaloo Nine library sit-in and other Mississippi civil-rights demonstrations and protests, especially during the early 1960s. Assembled by the Tougaloo College Archives, the collection focuses on three subject areas that are defined in the following series: Tougaloo Nine Sit-In Papers; Tougaloo Nine Reunion Papers; and Related Civil-Rights Issues Papers. Series one focuses on the Tougaloo Nine sit-in at the public library in downtown Jackson in 1961; series two concerns the Tougaloo Nine reunion in 1991; and series three pertains to other civil-rights demonstrations by Jackson State or Tougaloo students.

 

Series Identification:

Series 1: Tougaloo Nine Sit-In Papers. 1960-1961; 1984-1989; 1991; n.d. 9 folders.
This series consists of information relating to the 1961 Tougaloo Nine sit-in at the public library in downtown Jackson. It includes a list and three photographs of sit-in participants; thirty-two newsclippings about the incident; a copy of Mississippi House of Representatives Bill No. 558 (known informally as the “segregation law”); an American Library Association response to the sit-in; and an NAACP leaflet condemning police actions at the trial of the Tougaloo Nine. The group photograph of the Tougaloo Nine was photographed by Jerry Keahey. There are copies of eight letters and notes of Tougaloo president Adam Daniel Beittel regarding the sit-in and his April 17, 1961, meeting with First Christian Church board members who wanted Beittel to stop the Tougaloo Nine from appealing their convictions. Included are a 1984 memoir by Ethel Sawyer Adolphe and a 1989 research paper by Tougaloo student Marian Allen on the Tougaloo Nine.

Box 1, folders 1-11
Box 2, folder 1

 

Series 2: Tougaloo Nine Sit-In Reunion Papers. 1983-1984; 1990-1991; n.d. 5 folders.
This series consists of materials relating to the Tougaloo Nine reunion in 1991. There are twenty letters written by Tougaloo Nine members who planned the reunion; resumes of six Tougaloo Nine participants; and programs from reunion activities. Three photographs depict Tougaloo Nine members Ethel Sawyer Adolphe, Meredith C. Anding, Jr., and Janice Vails around 1991. Three articles from 1983 and 1984 reflect on the role of Tougaloo in the civil-rights movement. Three additional articles from 1991 describe the Tougaloo Nine reunion.

Box 1, folders 12-15

 

Series 3: Related Civil-Rights Issues Papers. 1961-1968. 7 folders.
This series contains documentation of sit-ins and other civil-rights demonstrations and protests that followed the Tougaloo Nine library sit-in. There are three pamphlets regarding the Jackson Non-Violent Movement and five newsletters from other Mississippi civil-rights groups. Included are a press release and two affidavits regarding a lawsuit filed by three Tougaloo students, Bette Poole, Ida Hannah, and Julie Zaugg, who were arrested, jailed, and convicted of trespassing while attempting to integrate the Capitol Street Methodist Church in Jackson. There are thirty newsclippings about civil-rights demonstrations connected with Jackson State or Tougaloo students. They include articles about the segregated 1961 Mississippi State Fair; the 1963 Woolworth’s lunch-counter sit-in; and the 1967 Jackson State demonstration in which civil-rights worker Benjamin Brown was shot and killed by Jackson police.

Box 1, folders 16-22