To the editor:

Kudos to Andy Tyska and Christine Depoto for their Freedom Rider mural. I moved to Bristol a year ago and was excited to spot its bold images on Franklin Street. The public celebration and remembrance of the life and work of John Lewis and the bravery of the Freedom Riders were important to me. It gave me a good feeling about Bristol.

When I arrived in Mississippi in 1964 as an invited summer volunteer to work with SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) in local Voter Registration and Freedom School projects, we heard people excitedly welcome us by saying “the ‘Freedom Riders’ are back.” We were proud to share that historic title.

The 1961 integrated Greyhound Bus that arrived in Jackson was met by an angry mob and by police who arrested those testing new federal desegregation rules on interstate travel and sent them to the infamous Parchman Prison. Between 1961 and 1964, local Black Mississippians focused their civil rights struggles on voter registration, rather than on bus travel or lunch counter or desegregation.

It’s hard to imagine now that after the Civil War’s end and its following period of Reconstruction, by 1890 almost 190,000 black voters were registered. However, after the terror of Jim Crow, Black Code segregationist laws, and KKK violence and intimidation that number of registered black voters had been dramatically reduced by 1964 to just around 2,000!

John Lewis was a Freedom Rider in 1961. In 1963, he gave a powerful speech at the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He was chairman of SNCC in 1964 — one of the main organizations sponsoring Mississippi Freedom Summer — with its focus on local, grass roots organizing for voter registration. Lewis’ and SNCC’s work led to the adoption of the 1965 federal Voting Rights Act. As a Congressman, he continued to fight for preserving those rights against the many recent attacks until the very day he died.

Over the years, I’ve had the honor and pleasure of working with many of the original and inspirational Freedom Riders. One of those, Lew Zuckman, had his image chosen to be on Bristol’s mural.

Again, thanks to Tyska and Depoto — and to Bristol — for reminding of us of the bravery, commitment and accomplishments of the Freedom Riders. Freedom Rider and civil rights history remind us of what has been accomplished over the years — and what is left to be done to make this a better world for us all.

Mark Levy
30 Summer St.