Biography
Ernest Patton Jr. was arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, on May 24, 1961, for participating in the Freedom Rides and challenging segregation in interstate transportation — one of the arrests recorded by the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission and preserved in the Civil Rights Digital Library. The individual catalog establishes the arrest, participation and police photograph. Nashville Metropolitan Council resolution RS2021-1161 additionally states that Patton was taken to Mississippi State Penitentiary. The exact transfer day and physical release date remain unresolved; the municipal resolution does not provide those dates.
The Jackson police placard in the verified photograph reads 5-24-61 where the catalog dates the record May 25, 1961; the placard date is entered.
Biographical source and date limits
Source document: Nashville Metropolitan Council resolution RS2021-1161 names Ernest “Rip” Patton, states that he was born in Nashville in 1940, and describes his joining the May 24, 1961 Freedom Ride and being arrested in Jackson. It expressly states that Patton was taken to Mississippi State Penitentiary. This later municipal biographical source therefore supports the transfer in general, beyond the individual arrest-photo catalog previously cited here. It gives no actual transfer day or physical release date. The existing 1940 birth year and May 24 arrest remain unchanged; the document’s print date is not a vital date or a prison admission.
The jointly filed petition individually lists this rider and explicitly states that all petitioners entered pleas of not guilty for their Hinds County Court trials de novo. The previously blank plea field records that county-trial plea only; it does not change the later disposition or establish physical custody dates.
