Biography
James Walker Evans was arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, on September 13, 1961, as one of fifteen Episcopal clergymen on the Prayer Pilgrimage Freedom Ride who entered the segregated coffee shop and waiting area at the Trailways terminal and refused police orders to leave — one of the arrests recorded by the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission and preserved in the Civil Rights Digital Library, which establishes the arrest and the individual identification photograph. Most of the fifteen posted bond quickly and continued the pilgrimage; two remained jailed to sustain publicity, and the available account does not identify which two. The arrests later gave rise to Pierson v. Ray. The disposition, any transfer to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, the time served and the release date are not established in the CRDL record and are left unresolved here rather than inferred.
Photo credit
Deputy clerk Robert Lilly’s sworn October 26, 1964 affidavit reports the following Hinds County Court disposition: County Court docket 12,933: nolle prosequi (prosecution discontinued), May 21, 1962. This is the legal disposition of the Freedom Ride prosecution, not evidence that physical custody continued until that date or that a jail release occurred then. Earlier municipal convictions, where already documented, are preserved as earlier events.
