Ain't Scared of Your Jail: Arrest, Imprisonment, and the Civil Rights Movement

3. From Sit-Ins to Jail-Ins

43 3 From Sit-Ins to Jail-Ins By the fall of 1960, the civil rights movement as a whole had talked at length about filling the jails, but very few individuals had actually served a full jail sentence. With a malaise upon the sit-in movement, “jail-in” became the new buzzword for 1961. In addition to a refusal to accept bail, jail-ins sought to place moral and financial pressure upon southern authorities by filling the jails with protesters for prolonged periods of time. This chapter explores a period in civil rights history when the use of arrest and imprisonment as a protest strategy was at its height and, in doing so, it reveals the way in which these protests, in particular the 1961 Freedom Ride, brought far longer periods of incarceration than had been typical during the sit-in protests, as well as a more diverse group of civil rights prisoners. The consequences of this development were manifold but, most importantly, it brought 44 | Ain’t Scared of Your Jail activists into much closer contact with the rest of the jail population. In addition to exploring these interactions, and other aspects of the activists’ jail experiences, this chapter brings into view the interplay between efforts to place moral, political, and financial pressure upon white authorities, and the corresponding pressure that placed upon civil rights organizations. These jail-ins brought benefits to the movement , but they also placed civil rights organizations under massive financial and legal pressures. This chapter also highlights divisions created by the strategy of filling the jails, most especially in relations with the NAACP. During 1961, filling the jails as a form of resistance in its own right was viewed as a radical and innovative form of protest. At the forefront of these developments was CORE, which sought to build upon its radical pacifist origins by standing at the helm of this new and exciting strategy. Besides a deep faith in Gandhian philosophy, CORE’s enthusiasm for mass imprisonment was spurred on by its competition with other civil rights organizations. The Congress of Racial Equality was deeply conscious of the competition it faced from SCLC and SNCC. Lacking the charismatic leadership of King and unable to display the same militant energies of SNCC, CORE viewed leadership of a massive jail-in campaign as an opportunity to stand out from the pack. In August 1960, CORE sponsored the second Miami Action Institute , which attracted a large number of southern college students. At the top of the discussion agenda was the jail-in. In many respects, the Institute was a great success for CORE. Not only was it able to attract a number of talented students into its fold, but James Robinson also led eighteen of those at the Institute in a lunch counter sit-in, at which they were arrested. Keen to put their discussions into practice, seven of the protesters remained in jail for the ten days prior to their trial, at which they were given suspended sentences. According to August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, CORE used its success in Miami to project an image of the organization sitting on the front line of new developments in nonviolent protest.1 From Sit-Ins to Jail-Ins | 45 South Carolina was one of the few southern states in which CORE had succeeded in establishing a strong presence; it was therefore a logical choice for the organization to test jail-ins. South Carolina was also home to Tom Gaither and James McCain—both strong supporters of the jail-in. Tom Gaither had been one of hundreds of students imprisoned in the Orangeburg City Jail on March 15 after police attacked protesters with fire hoses and tear gas. He had emerged from Orangeburg with a reputation as a talented leader, and CORE had quickly recruited him. Having been imprisoned as part of the Miami jail-in, he returned to his home state in December 1960 with the aim of expanding student support for mass arrests and long-term imprisonment. That month Gaither organized a CORE-sponsored student workshop in Orangeburg. Participants discussed at length the importance of remaining faithful to Gandhian philosophy when imprisoned, as well as the power of mass imprisonment to bring long-lasting change to the South.2 Early in 1961, Gaither sought to bring these ideas to life. He traveled to Rock Hill, a town close to Orangeburg, where there had been...