Freedom Rider: A Lesson in What One Person Can Do
“You don’t have to change the world … just change your world.”
![Hands holding candle in the dark Hands holding candle in the dark](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/bltd58760a97bf4bd58/652445417d47ca6ff8a2803b/Hands-holding-candle-in-the-dark.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
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In the early 1950s, while visiting family in Georgia, Joan was dared by a young playmate to cross the tracks and walk through the Black section of town.
“No one said anything to me, but the way they shrunk back and became invisible showed me that they believed they weren’t as good as me,” she said.
“I think that’s when things really hit me as to how unequal they were and how unfair.”
That incident fueled her determination to become part of the civil rights movement and work for change. Ten years later, she would do just that — and more.
Joan wanted to attend a small church school, but her mother wanted to make sure that her daughter was kept safe from integration, so she sent her to Duke. Not only was the school segregated, but male and female students had separate campuses.
“I just sort of gave up,” Joan said. “At least it would get me out of the house.”
Still, in the late winter of Joan’s freshman year, sit-ins started. And by early spring, she was involved in them.
“I knew what I was doing was keeping with my understanding of Christianity and the foundation of the country with the Declaration of Independence.”
“There was the advantage that once you took the fatal step of stepping outside the bounds of acceptability, there was no stepping back. So you could only go forward.”
The reaction to Joan’s participation in sit-ins and protests was that she had to be mentally ill. She was taken in for evaluation after her first arrest.
Duke’s dean of women pressured Joan to stop her activism. As a result, in the fall of 1961, Joan dropped out of Duke.
Arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, 19-year-old Joan and several other women were sent to Parchman Penitentiary. Joan refused to pay bail and so sat out her two-month sentence in a cell on death row. She served an additional 10 weeks rather than pay off her $200 fine.
In response to white students rioting over the admission of two Black students to the University of Georgia, Joan became the first white student to enroll at Tougaloo College, a private, historically Black college in Jackson, Mississippi. Two years later, she became the first white member of historically Black Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
On May 28, 1963, Joan and 13 other activists staged a sit-in at the Woolworth lunch counter. Members of the crowd surrounding them at first shouted insults and poured condiments over their heads. A flurry of violence came to an end when the store was closed. This time, Joan was not arrested.
In 2014, the Joan Trumpauer Mulholland Foundation was founded to honor and continue Joan’s legacy. It works to education people about the civil rights movement and how they can make a different in their community.
“Through our work, we have found that the most effective way to change racist ideology is to begin with education.” The foundation states. “Racism is a learned behavior. Adults and children alike can benefit from a change in perspective and an increased awareness of the past.”
Joan is a recipient of the 2020 Simeon Booker Award for Courage, the 2019 International Civil Rights Museum Trailblazer Award, the 2015 National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Award, the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated Annual Award of Honor and the Anti-Defamation League Annual Heroes Against Hate Award.
Joan is a recipient of the 2020 Simeon Booker Award for Courage, the 2019 International Civil Rights Museum Trailblazer Award, the 2015 National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Award, the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated Annual Award of Honor and the Anti-Defamation League Annual Heroes Against Hate Award.
Today is the 80th birthday of Freedom Rider Joan Trumpauer Mulholland. You’re probably more familiar with her face than her name. Maybe it was her 1961 mugshot for her participation in the Freedom Riders, a group of Black and white activists who challenged segregation in the south. Or the image of having food dumped over her head in 1963 as she and other activists staged a sit-in at the Woolworth lunch counter.
Joan Trumpauer Mulholland
Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Arlington, Virginia, Mulholland knew from an early age that she wanted to be a part of the civil rights movement. This flew in the face of accepted behavior for a young Southern woman in that day and age. More than that, she was the great-granddaughter of slave owners and the daughter of segregationists. And although she was eventually disowned by her family, Mulholland (then Trumpauer) stayed the course.
‘Rid Ourselves of this Evil’
Mulholland’s motivation was simple. “Segregation was unfair,” she said. “It was wrong, morally, religiously. As a Southerner — a white Southerner — I felt we should do what we could to make the South better and to rid ourselves of this evil.”
Alongside better-known civil rights activists such as Stokely Carmichael, Dr. Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers, Mulholland participated in historic marches and dozens of sit-ins. She also helped kick over a number of racial barriers. She got in a lot of “good trouble” as John Lewis called it. She eventually went on to work for the Smithsonian, the Department of Commerce and the Justice Department, then began teaching English as a second language.
Although Mulholland made a living as a teacher, she has remained a civil rights activist and a living example of what one person can do. “Anyone can make a difference,” she said. It doesn’t matter how old or young you are. Find a problem, get some friends together and go fix it. Remember, you don’t have to change the world … just change your world.”
To learn more about Joan Trumpauer Mulholland and her incredible courage and dedication to civil rights, watch the documentary, “An Ordinary Hero: The True Story of Joan Trumpauer Mulholland,” which was written and directed by her son Loki.
Scroll through the gallery above for a few of the highlights of Mulholland’s involvement in the 1960’s civil rights movement.
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