Early Life
Thomas Armstrong was born on August 17, 1941, in Lucas, Mississippi. He was the eighth of nine children (Including his deceased younger brother) of Mildred and Thomas Armstrong Jr. Mildred would later die due to an illness when Thomas was two and prior to her passing, she arranged for her sister-in-law Vaudra Armstrong and her husband Enoch Barnes to be his legal guardians. By the time Thomas was eleven, he had lost both of his birth parents to illnesses. Lucas was a very small but self-sufficient community of descendants of freedmen which meant that many people were related. Many of Thomas’s teachers were family members. This was a very family-oriented community that functioned as a unit. Under a few restrictions of the laws of Jim Crow South, only a small number of blacks could find jobs in the industries that emerged in the 1940s and so in the 1950’s many blacks were still working in some form of agriculture and 80 percent were sharecroppers. The community consisted mainly of farmers, teachers, and skilled tradesmen. Thomas worked on the farm as well as alongside Enoch who had his own logging business. He began to drive at the age of eight and by thirteen he was operating heavy machinery in Enoch’s logging business.
He attended Prentiss Normal and Industrial Institute. In 1958, while being in high school he volunteered for the NAACP as an organizer for Jefferson Davis County and other areas where injustice had been occurring. He majored in biology in college.
Activism
On one hot summer day when Armstrong was thirteen, he walked up to the front window of a dairy queen to place an order for some ice cream. [1] The attendant refused to take his order and ordered him to place an order from the “Colored” window which was located at the side of the shop near a garbage can swarming with flies. This was Thomas’s first personal encounter with racial inequality. According to his autobiography “Autobiography of a freedom rider”, Thomas claims that he had always known that segregation existed but the older members of the community shielded youngsters from this harsh reality.
Another incident that turned Armstrong’s efforts to activism was the one of Emmett till. Born in the same year as Emmett, Armstrong recalls hearing of the incident which had taken place not too far away from his family home and thinking that it could easily have been him.
In 1868 the number of black Mississippians registered to vote was 96.7 percent and twenty years after the onset of Jim Crow laws that number dropped drastically to 6 percent. This was because the legislature had added on many restrictions to the voter registration requirements such as paying poll taxes which many black Americans could not afford, a two-year residency requirement, and something called the ‘understanding clause’ which stated that applicants must be able to read any section of the constitution, be able to understand it when read to and be able to give a reasonable explanation of the text. Fed up with this injustice Thomas Armstrong decided that it was his duty to be a part of the movement. During one mass meeting Medgar Evers, the field secretary for the state of Mississippi read out a list of names of people that had been affected by the arbitrarily stricken from voting restrictions. A few of those names were members of his family and friends. In his autobiography, he states that this was a pivotal moment in his life and his chance to turn his thoughts and feelings about the need to improve conditions for blacks in Mississippi toward fighting voter disenfranchisement.
He worked closely with Medgar. W. Ever (July 2, 1925 – June 12, 1963) who was an American civil rights activist, World War II veteran, the state field secretary for the Mississippi chapter of the NAACP, and Armstrong's mentor. He worked to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi, end the segregation of public facilities, and expand opportunities for African Americans, which included the enforcement of voting rights.
In 1961, Many Freedom Rides were organized to protest the unlawful segregation of interstate transportation. The Supreme Court had declared that segregation on interstate transportation was an unconstitutional violation of human rights on several occasions. Nevertheless, it was still segregated. Freedom Rides were a tactic of nonviolent action that was pioneered by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The use of this Gandhian model of nonviolence as a tactic became increasingly prevalent in the movement after the first group of activists on May 14th. After this, the Congress for Racial Equality called on other civil rights organizations to assist with a new tactic called the ‘jail-no-bail’ initiative which aimed to fill the jails of Mississippi with Freedom Riders. It was not only difficult but necessary and six months after the first-ever Freedom Ride in the spring of 1961, over 400 Americans of different ages and ethnicities and religions were riding integrated buses from all over America to the deep south.
Trials
On June 23, 1961, a freedom ride was scheduled from Jackson, Mississippi to New Orleans in which Thomas was a part. That ride was interrupted and all the riders were taken to the Jackson county jail. They were branded the “Tugalaoo four”. It was a protest against Mississippi state Governor Ross Barnett who appeared on Television saying that the blacks of Mississippi were satisfied with the conditions of the state. Armstrong was jailed with other freedom riders including Mary Hamilton, Mary Harrison, Elnora Ross Price, Joseph ross. Thomas Armstrong was sentenced to four months in jail and fined two hundred dollars. Three days later he was bailed out by The president of Tougaloo College, Dr. A.D. Beittel, a firm supporter of the movement.
After his involvement with the NAACP and CORE became public, he began to receive threats from the Ku Klux Klan and is an American white supremacist terrorist hate group whose primary targets are African Americans as well as Jews, immigrants, leftists, homosexuals, Catholics, Muslims, and atheists. He, His parents, and other members of his family received threats, and eventually after many in-depth conversations with his closest friends and parents and he was convinced to leave Mississippi. Soon after he left for Kansas City, Missouri where he lived with his half-sisters.
In his Autobiography aptly named ‘autobiography of a freedom rider,’ Thomas Armstrong notes that he sunk into a deep depression and fell to alcoholism to deal with his life on the run from violent segregationists.
On June 11th, 1963, Medgar Evers, Armstrong’s mentor, was shot in the back and killed by a white supremacist named Byron De La Beckwith as he was returning home that evening. At the time of his assassination, Evers was only thirty-seven years old. Having served in the military in World War II he was buried with military honors in the Arlington National Cemetery.
Soon after the death of Medgar Evers, Armstrong returned to Mississippi to finish his degree at Tougaloo College. After recognizing that everyone who he had previously worked with was gone and that momentum of student activists at Tougaloo had lost the momentum he dropped out once again and took his efforts to the church. He began working with Ed King a young white Methodist minister and Tougaloo’s chaplain. Ed had devised a method called “church visitations’. The belief was that ‘good people could be more readily found in the church than in general society. Therefore they might be able to reach the hearts of the caucasian pastors and their members and make greater headway toward ending segregation’ (Armstrong et. al 165). However, the opposite happened. Integrated Groups that were sent to churches to worship were turned away and at times called communists and even arrested.
He then went to Chicago, Illinois where he worked with the Student Non-violent Coordination Committee (SNCC). He now resides in Naperville, Illinois with his wife Jeanette, and his family.
- ^ Armstrong, Thomas (2011). Autobiography of a Freedom Rider: My Life as a Foot Soldier for Civil Rights. Health Communications. pp. 1–208.
Early Life
Thomas Armstrong was born on August 17, 1941, in Lucas, Mississippi. He was the eighth of nine children (Including his deceased younger brother) of Mildred and Thomas Armstrong Jr. Mildred would later die due to an illness when Thomas was two and prior to her passing, she arranged for her sister-in-law Vaudra Armstrong and her husband Enoch Barnes to be his legal guardians. By the time Thomas was eleven, he had lost both of his birth parents to illnesses. Lucas was a very small but self-sufficient community of descendants of freedmen which meant that many people were related. Many of Thomas’s teachers were family members. This was a very family-oriented community that functioned as a unit. Under a few restrictions of the laws of Jim Crow South, only a small number of blacks could find jobs in the industries that emerged in the 1940s and so in the 1950’s many blacks were still working in some form of agriculture and 80 percent were sharecroppers. The community consisted mainly of farmers, teachers, and skilled tradesmen. Thomas worked on the farm as well as alongside Enoch who had his own logging business. He began to drive at the age of eight and by thirteen he was operating heavy machinery in Enoch’s logging business.
He attended Prentiss Normal and Industrial Institute. In 1958, while being in high school he volunteered for the NAACP as an organizer for Jefferson Davis County and other areas where injustice had been occurring. He majored in biology in college.
Activism
On one hot summer day when Armstrong was thirteen, he walked up to the front window of a dairy queen to place an order for some ice cream. [1] The attendant refused to take his order and ordered him to place an order from the “Colored” window which was located at the side of the shop near a garbage can swarming with flies. This was Thomas’s first personal encounter with racial inequality. According to his autobiography “Autobiography of a freedom rider”, Thomas claims that he had always known that segregation existed but the older members of the community shielded youngsters from this harsh reality.
Another incident that turned Armstrong’s efforts to activism was the one of Emmett till. Born in the same year as Emmett, Armstrong recalls hearing of the incident which had taken place not too far away from his family home and thinking that it could easily have been him.
In 1868 the number of black Mississippians registered to vote was 96.7 percent and twenty years after the onset of Jim Crow laws that number dropped drastically to 6 percent. This was because the legislature had added on many restrictions to the voter registration requirements such as paying poll taxes which many black Americans could not afford, a two-year residency requirement, and something called the ‘understanding clause’ which stated that applicants must be able to read any section of the constitution, be able to understand it when read to and be able to give a reasonable explanation of the text. Fed up with this injustice Thomas Armstrong decided that it was his duty to be a part of the movement. During one mass meeting Medgar Evers, the field secretary for the state of Mississippi read out a list of names of people that had been affected by the arbitrarily stricken from voting restrictions. A few of those names were members of his family and friends. In his autobiography, he states that this was a pivotal moment in his life and his chance to turn his thoughts and feelings about the need to improve conditions for blacks in Mississippi toward fighting voter disenfranchisement.
He worked closely with Medgar. W. Ever (July 2, 1925 – June 12, 1963) who was an American civil rights activist, World War II veteran, the state field secretary for the Mississippi chapter of the NAACP, and Armstrong's mentor. He worked to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi, end the segregation of public facilities, and expand opportunities for African Americans, which included the enforcement of voting rights.
In 1961, Many Freedom Rides were organized to protest the unlawful segregation of interstate transportation. The Supreme Court had declared that segregation on interstate transportation was an unconstitutional violation of human rights on several occasions. Nevertheless, it was still segregated. Freedom Rides were a tactic of nonviolent action that was pioneered by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The use of this Gandhian model of nonviolence as a tactic became increasingly prevalent in the movement after the first group of activists on May 14th. After this, the Congress for Racial Equality called on other civil rights organizations to assist with a new tactic called the ‘jail-no-bail’ initiative which aimed to fill the jails of Mississippi with Freedom Riders. It was not only difficult but necessary and six months after the first-ever Freedom Ride in the spring of 1961, over 400 Americans of different ages and ethnicities and religions were riding integrated buses from all over America to the deep south.
Trials
On June 23, 1961, a freedom ride was scheduled from Jackson, Mississippi to New Orleans in which Thomas was a part. That ride was interrupted and all the riders were taken to the Jackson county jail. They were branded the “Tugalaoo four”. It was a protest against Mississippi state Governor Ross Barnett who appeared on Television saying that the blacks of Mississippi were satisfied with the conditions of the state. Armstrong was jailed with other freedom riders including Mary Hamilton, Mary Harrison, Elnora Ross Price, Joseph ross. Thomas Armstrong was sentenced to four months in jail and fined two hundred dollars. Three days later he was bailed out by The president of Tougaloo College, Dr. A.D. Beittel, a firm supporter of the movement.
After his involvement with the NAACP and CORE became public, he began to receive threats from the Ku Klux Klan and is an American white supremacist terrorist hate group whose primary targets are African Americans as well as Jews, immigrants, leftists, homosexuals, Catholics, Muslims, and atheists. He, His parents, and other members of his family received threats, and eventually after many in-depth conversations with his closest friends and parents and he was convinced to leave Mississippi. Soon after he left for Kansas City, Missouri where he lived with his half-sisters.
In his Autobiography aptly named ‘autobiography of a freedom rider,’ Thomas Armstrong notes that he sunk into a deep depression and fell to alcoholism to deal with his life on the run from violent segregationists.
On June 11th, 1963, Medgar Evers, Armstrong’s mentor, was shot in the back and killed by a white supremacist named Byron De La Beckwith as he was returning home that evening. At the time of his assassination, Evers was only thirty-seven years old. Having served in the military in World War II he was buried with military honors in the Arlington National Cemetery.
Soon after the death of Medgar Evers, Armstrong returned to Mississippi to finish his degree at Tougaloo College. After recognizing that everyone who he had previously worked with was gone and that momentum of student activists at Tougaloo had lost the momentum he dropped out once again and took his efforts to the church. He began working with Ed King a young white Methodist minister and Tougaloo’s chaplain. Ed had devised a method called “church visitations’. The belief was that ‘good people could be more readily found in the church than in general society. Therefore they might be able to reach the hearts of the caucasian pastors and their members and make greater headway toward ending segregation’ (Armstrong et. al 165). However, the opposite happened. Integrated Groups that were sent to churches to worship were turned away and at times called communists and even arrested.
He then went to Chicago, Illinois where he worked with the Student Non-violent Coordination Committee (SNCC). He now resides in Naperville, Illinois with his wife Jeanette, and his family.
- ^ Armstrong, Thomas (2011). Autobiography of a Freedom Rider: My Life as a Foot Soldier for Civil Rights. Health Communications. pp. 1–208.