Book on Freedom Riders gave author window into history
http://news.cincinnati.com/usatoday/article/3459921
Book on Freedom Riders gave author window into history
MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Mug shots aren't exactly works of art, but a Mississippi-born photographer too young to have experienced the civil rights era is using them to explain a seminal moment in that historic social movement.
His name is Eric Etheridge, and his project involved publishing portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders - 328 young men and women who challenged segregation in the Deep South and, in many cases, wound up behind bars for their efforts.
Alabama plays a small role in Breach of Peace, Etheridge's book about what happened more than 50 years ago when Freedom Riders boarded buses bound for Birmingham, Ala., and Jackson, Miss.
They were burned out of a bus in Anniston, Ala., and then savagely beaten at bus stops in Birmingham and Montgomery, but few were arrested in Alabama because they scattered after they were attacked.... MORE