THE FREEDOM RIDERS / MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE

MISSISSIPPI CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM JACKSON | TENNESSEE The Freedom Riders

Take a walk through the Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, Mississippi, and you’ll come across one of the movement’s youngest ever Freedom Riders: Hezekiah Watkins.

WORDS AND PHOTOS BY SIMON URWIN

Arrested more than a hundred times, his black-and-white mugshot adorns a wall in one of the museum’s many galleries, and the man himself, now in his early seventies, can be found shaking hand with visitors, sharing stories of his activist past.

“I was arrested for the first time aged 13, and I wasn’t even a Freedom Rider back then”, he tells me. “It happened because I was nosey. I wanted to know what a Freedom Rider looked like. I watched them on the news being spat at and attacked by dogs. I thought they must be superhuman to withstand that kind of treatment and to keep on going, fighting for what was right.”

So, one summer’s day in 1961, an inquisitive Watkins went to the Greyhound bus station in Jackson, eager for a glimpse of the Freedom Riders who had arranged a sit-in to protest against segregation on public transport. “My momma had warned me not to go”, he says. “But I went anyway because I found them so inspiring.” Inside, the police quickly approached him. “They asked who I was and where I came from. I gave them my name and told them I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” says Watkins, who had moved to Mississippi aged 10, shortly after the death of his father. The police

Hezekiah Watkins and his friends in The Freedom Riders paved the way for cahnge.

– THEY TOLD ME I WAS ON DEATH ROW,” HE SAYS. “THEY’D SAY: “THEY GONNA FRY YO’ ASS. YOU GONNA DIE IN THE ELECTRIC CHAIR”.

IT WAS TERRIFYING. I CAN’T EVEN GO PAST THAT PLACE NOW. I’VE

NEVER EVEN TOLD MY CHILDREN WHAT REALLY HAPPENED.

wrongly assumed that he was an agitator from the Midwest, and had travelled south to cause trouble. They duly arrested him.

Watkins was sent to the local penitentiary and placed in a cell with two inmates, both charged with murder. “It was the worst moment of my life”, he says. “The men had no remorse; they joked about how they had killed their victims. I was sure they’d kill me.” For the next five days he was beaten, molested, and tormented. “They told me I was on death row,” he says. “They’d say: “They gonna fry yo’ ass. You gonna die in the electric chair”. It was terrifying. I can’t even go past that place now. I’ve never even told my children what really happened.”

TO BECOME A FREEDOM RIDER Watkins was eventually released on condition that he distance himself from the movement. The police then called his mother and told her to come and pick him up. “She had been looking for me for days and when she came to the jail, she thought it would be to identify my remains”, he says. “When she got me back home she made me strip and whipped me. She beat the hell out of me for disobeying her. She was furious.” After hearing about the incarceration, James Bevel, a significant figure in the Civil Rights movement, paid Watkins and his mother a visit. “He talked to us about inequality and injustice. He was a preacher so he knew how to use words to win us over. Eventually he asked me to join up permanently, and got my momma to agree to it. That’s when my journey truly started”, he says.

Watkins, by now 14, began taking part in regular sit-ins and marches in between multiple arrests. “Voter registration became the big thing for us”, he says. “You can protest all you like, but to make lasting change you need someone representing you at a political level. You need blacks in public office. We made that happen.”

PAVING THE WAY It’s now over 60 years since Watkins’s was first taken into custody, and I ask him how he reflects upon his years of campaigning. “It’s been a hell of a ride, but I’m glad I fell into it, pretty much by mistake”, he says. “Us Freedom Riders paved the way for change. The road for black people is smoother because of what we achieved. And yes, Mississippi is still dragging far behind when it comes to progress. But it’s moving forward, slowly. And that gives me hope. We can build on hope. So we must always keep it in our hearts.”

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