Biography
Peter Harry Stoner was arrested as a Freedom Rider in Jackson, Mississippi on July 2, 1961; the Civil Rights Digital Library preserves his individually identified arrest photograph, but does not establish the disposition or release for that arrest. While organizing voter registration in Hattiesburg in 1964, he was arrested five times and spent several months in the Forrest County work camp, performing road construction and suffering beatings. His separate sworn affidavit, already reflected in the case record, dates one arrest to February 5, 1964, work-camp admission to February 6 and release after payment of the fine to May 21. These dates describe that interval, not all of his separate 1964 arrests.
Contemporary source context and date limits
The February 11, 1964 Student Voice corroborates Stoner’s February 5 arrest outside the Forrest County jail. It prints a 120-day sentence and $380 fine and calls the sentencing day “Friday, Feb. 6,” although February 6, 1964 was a Thursday. The separately reviewed sworn affidavit already recorded in this profile supplies February 6 work-camp admission, May 21 release and a $391 fine. Those affidavit-backed case fields are unchanged; the newspaper’s date/weekday and fine discrepancies are preserved rather than silently harmonized. The stale biography assertion that the 1964 dates were not entered has been corrected to match the existing case record.
The November 1964 Civil Liberties Docket reports that Stoner’s February 6 trial took place in his locked cell, with two sheriff’s deputies assigned as counsel. He dismissed them after they declined constitutional objections. The account also records his later habeas challenge.
