Nine Black College Students Were Arrested in 1961 for Reading at a Segregated Public Library. Their Contributions to the Civil Rights Movement Have Long Been Overlooked; Smithsonian Magazine, March 26, 2026

 Kayla Randall - Digital Editor, Museums, Smithsonian Magazine; Nine Black College Students Were Arrested in 1961 for Reading at a Segregated Public Library. Their Contributions to the Civil Rights Movement Have Long Been Overlooked

"When nine Black college students walked into a segregated public library in Mississippi on March 27, 1961, they knew what to expect next: Staff would call the police, and they would probably be arrested if they refused to leave. According to local laws, being Black in a space designated only for the white public constituted a breach of peace. By stepping through the doors of the Jackson Municipal Library, they would be risking physical harm and verbal abuse. They might even face an angry crowd.

But the students, from the historically Black Tougaloo College, had trained for this moment. This was a sit-in, a nonviolent direct-action protest, and they were prepared. They’d been guided by the likes of Medgar Evers, the NAACP’s first Mississippi field officer, who was known for his public investigation into the murder of Emmett Till and his fight against Jim Crow laws in the state; Ernst Borinski, a Jewish lawyer who’d fled Nazi Germany, then accepted a position teaching sociology at Tougaloo after World War II; and Tougaloo chaplain John Mangram.

The civic-minded students wanted to effect change in Mississippi. Entering that library would boldly oppose the state’s unyielding system of segregation and highlight the disparities they experienced as Black residents."