Biography
Robert Earl Filner, born in Pittsburgh and later a member of Congress and mayor of San Diego, was arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, on June 16, 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 refused to post bond and remained in custody for approximately two months. The charges are recorded as disturbing the peace and inciting a riot. The institutional sequence and the release date are not established, so the two months is recorded as a duration rather than as a pair of dates.
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.
