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American Civil Rights activist reconnects with children she met during work to desegregate South
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BATON ROUGE - American Civil Rights activist Joan Mulholland was in Baton Rouge on Saturday and reconnected with children she crossed paths with on her decades-long journey to end racism through education.
Johhalyn Jackson recounted receiving a teddy bear and Black Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls when she was nine years old.
"You couldn't find Black Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls, but I had one from my grandmother, who got them from this white lady who was very active in the Civil Rights movement," Jackson said. "At the time she was very young, and came through Mississippi again, and I guess gave these items to my grandmother for her grandkids."
Mulholland, from Virginia, said her dedication for making a change in the world started when she was 10 years old and saw the effects of segregation on children while in she was visiting family in Georgia.
"My girlfriend and I decided to sneak off, and go where we were forbidden to go, the colored part of town, which was the polite term then," Mulholland said. "We got to the colored school. It was a one room shack. The door was open, you could see the potbelly stove for heat. [There was] no glass, no screens in the windows, just wooden shutters, no electricity, no running water. There was an outhouse way out in the yard.
"I knew on the other end of town was the fanciest building for miles around. The brand new brick school for white kids, and I knew this was not right. This was not the way. We should treat people the way we want to be treated."
In 1961, Mulholland joined together with other white and Black activists to create the Freedom Riders group. The protestors rode side-by-side on segregated buses in the South.
"I was even arrested here in Baton Rouge," Mulholland laughed and explained a court proceeding. "I sat with my buddies in the courtroom, and got held in contempt of court for sitting on the wrong side of the courtroom."
Later that year, she decided not to return to Duke University, and instead enrolled in Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss. At 82 years old, she still proudly sports her Greek letters.
"I grew up listening to the stories my grandmother told about being in the Civil Rights movement," Jackson said. "To learn there was a white woman who risked her life to fight for justice, peace, and people of color. She is an amazing woman who had the courage to do that."
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