Dates: 1961-1964; n.d.
Restricted access; permission of manuscript curator only.
Duplicates and other extraneous materials in box 2 are restricted.

Biography:

Byron Mark Baer

Byron Mark Baer was born on October 18, 1929, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Walter D. Baer, a sales broker, and Hortense Mark Baer. He had one older brother. Byron Baer attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, as well as New York University and Columbia University in New York City, but never earned a degree. During college, he became involved in the Civil Rights Movement, joining the civil rights organization CORE (Congress of Racial Equality). In 1957, he moved to Englewood, New Jersey, where he would live for the rest of his life. In the late fifties and early sixties, Baer worked as a special-effects technician for motion pictures, most notably on the 1962 horror film The Brain That Wouldn’t Die. In July 1961, he traveled from Nashville, Tennessee, to Jackson, Hinds County, Mississippi, as a participant in the Freedom Rides. The Freedom Rides were formed after the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Boynton v. Virginia (1960) that racial segregation in public transportation was illegal because such segregation violated the Interstate Commerce Act. To test the ruling of the court, African Americans and whites coordinated by CORE rode various forms of public transportation in the South to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation.

Baer flew out of New York International Airport to Nashville on the morning of July 28, and the next day became part of a group of ten Freedom Riders that traveled to Jackson via Greyhound bus. Upon their arrival in Jackson at 1:00 P.M., eight were arrested and charged with “breach of peace” for their attempt to integrate the bus terminal. Police refused to arrest two of the group, a blind woman and an Indonesian exchange student. Those arrested were tried on July 31st in Jackson Municipal Court. One of them, a West German journalist, was found not guilty and had his charges dropped; the rest were sentenced to four months in jail and a $200 fine.

Because the city and county jails had begun to overflow with Freedom Riders, Governor Ross Barnett decided in mid-June 1961 to send them to the Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman Farm), in rural Sunflower County, 130 miles north of Jackson in the Mississippi Delta. While at Parchman, protestors were segregated by race and sex; Baer and others were transferred from the “first offenders” section of the prison to the maximum security unit on August 18. Baer used his special-effects experience to make a chess set out of bread, which many other Freedom Riders did as well. His chess set was successfully smuggled out of prison by another rider. Baer also had built a small transistor radio that he smuggled into prison and successfully used. Baer was released on bond from Parchman on September 9. At the request of United States Attorney General Robert Kennedy, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued a new federal order banning segregation in interstate bus traveling effective November 1, 1961. This led to the removal of “whites” and “colored” signs at bus terminals, and the integration of restrooms and drinking fountains.

In 1965, Baer participated in the Selma-to-Montgomery march, joining civil rights leaders and marchers as they advocated for the right to vote. Through his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, Baer developed a relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and became one of his advisors.

Baer’s career in politics began in 1965, when he became a legislative assistant to Arnold Brown, the first African American to represent Bergen County in the New Jersey Legislature. Brown was voted out of office two years later, but in 1971 Baer was elected as a Democrat to Brown’s former seat in the New Jersey General Assembly, the lower house of the legislature. Shortly after his election to the first of his eleven terms, Baer was involved in a physical confrontation while trying to investigate the treatment of southern New Jersey migrant workers, during which he was struck with an iron pipe that broke his arm. During his twenty-two years as an assemblyman, Baer served as assistant minority leader (1986-1989), associate Assembly leader (1990), deputy Speaker (1991), and minority leader pro tempore (1992-93). Baer was instrumental in authoring New Jersey’s Open Public Meetings Act. The act, commonly referred to as the “Sunshine Law,” guarantees citizens’ right to attend meetings of governmental bodies at which public business is discussed or acted upon, and to have adequate notice of these meetings. In 1976, Baer ran for the United States House of Representatives, losing the Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 9th congressional district to incumbent Henry Helstoski. In 1993, he was elected to the New Jersey Senate, representing the 37th district. In the Senate, Baer served as minority leader pro tempore (1996-2001), Democratic leader ex-officio (2002-2003), and leader ex-officio (2004-2005). He resigned from the Senate on September 8, 2005, midway through his fourth term, on account of poor health due to Parkinson’s disease and heart ailments.

Baer was a longtime member of the National Association of Jewish Legislators, of which he at one time served as president. He served on the Securities Regulation Commission, the Hudson Waterfront Development Commission, and the Holocaust Memorial Commission. In 2005, Baer received the Shem Tov and Distinguished Service awards from the New Jersey Association of Jewish Federations. The National Freedom of Information Coalition and the Society of Professional Journalists inducted Baer into the Open Government Hall of Fame in 2006. For his contributions to civil rights law, the New Jersey Commission on Civil Rights and Division on Civil Rights renamed the Newark Commission’s Conference Room the “Senator Byron Baer Commission Conference Room” in his honor. The Open Public Meetings Act Baer authored was also renamed in his honor the “Senator Byron M. Baer Open Public Meetings Act.” At Ramapo College of New Jersey in Mahwah, a scholarship endowment was established in Baer’s memory by his widow and stepdaughter after his death.

At the time of the Freedom Rides, Baer was married to Anne Stewart Baer, with whom he had two children; the couple were later divorced. In 1983, he married Linda Rupert Pollitt, an administrative law judge and later a freeholder, or county legislator, in Bergen County. On June 24, 2007, Byron Mark Baer died of congestive heart failure at the Lillian Booth Actor's Fund Home in Englewood. His remains were cremated. He was survived by his wife Linda Pollitt Baer; his children and stepchildren, David Baer, Laura Baer Levine, Roger Pollitt, and Lara Pollitt Rodriguez; and three grandchildren.

 

Scope and Content Note:

This collection of Byron M. Baer contains correspondence, notes, publicity flyers, scrapbook pages, newsclippings, and other materials concerning the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the 1961 Freedom Rides to Jackson, Mississippi. Most of the materials relate to Baer’s experience as a Freedom Rider and his resulting imprisonment in the Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman Farm). Of particular interest are correspondence sent by Baer and other Freedom Riders during their imprisonment, and daily notes written by Baer on tissue during his time at Parchman.

 

Series Identification:

Series 1: Freedom Rider Imprisonment Correspondence and Papers, 1961.

This series contains correspondence and other materials related to Freedom Riders’ imprisonment and trials. The correspondence includes contains three original letters sent during the Freedom Riders’ imprisonment, two sent by Baer to his wife and one sent by Freedom Rider Barbara Kay, also from Englewood; a photocopy of a letter written by Freedom Rider Joel Greenberg and smuggled out of Parchman (folder 1); one original letter from Baer to Elizabeth Kroll written on toilet paper, probably soon after his arrest and before transfer to Parchman (folder 2); and other correspondence related to the trials of Freedom Riders (folder 3). The other materials include photocopies of songbooks and daily notes written by Baer on tissue while incarcerated (folder 1); instructions on concealing codes in prisoner correspondence; notes, a transcript, and other documents related to trials; and a receipt for hearing aid materials purchased in Nashville, probably used to build the radio Baer smuggled into Parchman (folder 3).

Box 1, folders 1-3

 

Series 2: Freedom Rider Correspondence, Flyers, and Study, 1961-1964; n.d.

This series contains other material related to the Freedom Riders, including correspondence from CORE and others and Freedom Rider publicity flyers. The correspondence from CORE consists of a letter sent to parents of the Freedom Riders held at Parchman and mailings to supporters concerning the finances of the Freedom Rides movement. Also included is a letter sent to Baer from a fellow Freedom Rider that contains an original drawing. The publicity flyers concern a fundraising event and a “welcome home” rally where Bergen County Freedom Riders shared their experiences. This series also contains a 1964 report on a study of Freedom Riders’ racial, gender, and geographic distribution; motivation; political and philosophical views; and religious identification, based on questionnaires sent to 301 riders.

Box 1, folder 4

 

Series 3: Scrapbook and Newsclippings, 1961-1962; n.d.

This series contains pages of a scrapbook entitled “Confessions of a Freedom Rider,” which concern the Freedom Rides and their aftermath, especially Baer’s participation in them and his imprisonment. The pages contain newsclippings, photographs, and other information, both typed and handwritten, compiled on construction paper (folder 5). Other newsclippings in the series pertain to the same topics (folders 6-8). The clippings are mostly from New Jersey papers and include interviews with Barbara Kay and Anne S. Baer.

Box 1, folders 5-8
Box 2 (restricted duplicates and other materials)

 

Box List:

Box 1:

Folder 1: Correspondence and notes written from Parchman, 1961.
Folder 2: Letter from Byron M. Baer written on toilet paper, 1961.
Folder 3: Codes for prison communication, trial information, and hearing aid receipt, 1961-1962.
Folder 4: Freedom Rider correspondence, publicity flyers, and study, 1961-1964; n.d.
Folder 5: “Confessions of a Freedom Rider” scrapbook, 1961.
Folders 6-8: Newsclippings, 1961-1962; n.d.

Box 2 (restricted):

Duplicate photocopies and clippings; empty “Freedom Ride” binder; blank pages.