Biography
Carrie Patterson was a 20-year-old Florida A&M College student arrested with Wilhelmina Jakes on May 26, 1956 after they sat in the only available bus seats, beside a white passenger. Police charged them with placing themselves in a position to incite a riot. Both women were released on $25 bonds, and police turned the cases over to college officials on May 30. The surviving report does not state the precise date of Patterson’s release. Their arrests sparked the Tallahassee bus boycott.
