BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN " THE TOUGALOO NINE " THESE NINE STUDENT FROM A SMALL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION IN CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI ALSO MADE A STAND AGAINST RACISM :

                                                                               BLACK       SOCIAL    HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                 Local Member of The ‘Tougaloo Nine’ Tells Her Story

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Geraldine Edwards-Hollis, top left inset photo, discusses her experiences as one of the Tougaloo Nine, college students who integrated a library in Jackson, Miss., in 1961. Edwards-Hollis is shown in this photo, second left, with the other Tougaloo Nine members.

OAK PARK — The efforts of the Little Rock 9 (LR9), the first Black students to integrated Central High School in the early part of the civil rights movement, is well-documented in African American history. The students obtained that notoriety because of the usage of television in the 1950s.

About four years after the LR9 went through its turbulent period integrating Central High, the civil rights youth movement moved up to the college level where nine Black students from a small educational institution in Central Mississippi also made a stand against racism.

Geraldine Edwards, who now lives in Stockton, Calif., and goes by the last name of Hollis, was attending Tougaloo College in 1961 when she and eight other Black pupils made a courageous stand to exact equality.

The “Tougaloo Nine,” as they were later called, began a “sit-in” in the main “White Only” library of Jackson, Miss.

“The ‘Tougaloo Nine’ was successful but not well known,” Ms. Edwards-Hollis said at her book signing and discussion at the Underground Books Store last month. “This is why I’ve been trying to tell my story that we made a difference,” she said.

Ms. Edwards-Hollis, a native of Natchez, Mississippi, talked about her position as a member of the “Tougaloo Nine,” her time spent at the Historically Black Christian College 17 miles north of downtown Jackson, and her book, “Back To Mississippi.”

“Back to Mississippi” is Ms. Edwards-Hollis’ story of one of the first young Black adults to “breach the forbidden entry” into a public library in Jackson.
On March 27, 1961, the Tougaloo Nine went to the library, today named, the Eudora Welty Library on State Street, in Jackson in attempt to repeal segregation.

Ms. Edwards-Hollis said the sit-in was strategically planned and under the guidance of Mississippi NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers.
The Jackson Public Library was targeted because it was subsidized by tax dollars — all taxpayers’ dollars.

“This is why you have this story, ‘Back to Mississippi,” Ms. Edwards-Hollis said.
“I wanted to give you an idea of why I wrote the story, what it entailed to be the kind of person that would go through the things we had to go through. We put our lives on the line and put our families in jeopardy. Some of us were not able to finish our academic careers at Tougaloo College.”

Four of the “Tougaloo Nine” were from the state of Mississippi, three from Tennessee, one from Michigan, and the last from New York. They were all arrested at the library, and then later investigated by the “Sovereignty Commission.”

Along with Ms. Edwards-Hollis, Joseph Jackson, Jr., James “Sammy” Bradford, Evelyn Pierce (deceased), Albert Lassiter, Ethel Sawyer, Meredith Anding, Jr., Jackson Jackson, and Alfred Cook were vetted by the Commission, whose main purpose was “to protect Whites’ way of living in the Deep South.”

Not one of the students had a criminal record, but after the sit in, they experienced intimidation in some form or another. One of the students witnessed a man dressed in Ku Klux Klan attire rode upon their parents’ property on a horse.

Some of these experiences are explained in Ms. Edwards-Hollis’ 332-page book.

“I lived with all of this. This was inside of me,” Ms. Edwards-Hollis told The OBSERVER. “All of these this things that I did and lived through, I had to bury them inside of me. I couldn’t talk about them because nobody at the time would’ve understood what we went through. Right now, some of the (Tougaloo Nine) are not comfortable talking about some of the things that they felt.”

Ms. Edwards-Hollis’ book has since been incorporated in the Mississippi library system. The living members of the “Tougaloo Nine” have received recognition for their impact on the civil rights movement.

At one time she was a school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area, though she rarely mentioned her days during the civil rights movement. One of her former students attended the book discussion.

“She was my teacher in Oakland,” said Denise M. August, who has been living in Sacramento for seven years. “I didn’t know all of this was happening, but she is willing to talk about it now,” said Ms. August.

Local community activist and former educator Cordia Wade along with Yvonne Wilson, who has been to many Underground Books discussions, were also captivated by Ms. Edwards-Hollis’ story.

“This is important history along the lines of the Little Rock 9,” Wilson said. “I am so glad Ms. Hollis shared this with us