Biography
Sam-Joe Townsend was a UCLA graduate student, born about 1933 and joined the July 30, 1961 Illinois Central train ride from New Orleans and was arrested in Jackson — 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 died in 1971. The mugshot reads Sam-Jo, but the catalog explains Sam-Joe is the authoritative form.
