Biography
Obadiah Lee Simms was arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, on June 7, 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 catalog establishes the arrest, the participation, and the individually identified police photograph, but not the court disposition, any transfer to Parchman, or the physical release date; those fields are unresolved pending county-jail, court, or penitentiary records.
He was twenty-one and a student at Virginia Union University, and rode Trailways from Nashville through Memphis with five others.
