From Assumed Thug to Actual Hero: The Time My Dad Was Arrested as a Peaceful Child Demonstrator for Civil Rights

— By Dr. Lee Davenport

While some people began baking bread and planting gardens during quarantine, I began to uncover the experiences that shaped my parents, grandparents, and other living relatives. 

Why did I suddenly turn into “Henrietta Louis Gates” (the fun nickname my family gave me as I became the self-appointed family genealogist and historian mimicking Henry Louis Gates’s PBS show, “Finding Your Roots”)? 

I was coping and working out my pandemic-induced anxiety. It was a hard psychological time, and I fought hard to not pick up or return to any vices. 

Oddly, I found my solace in my family and their stories.

I find it odd because as a child (with the typical warped sense of time), I could not be bothered with their retelling of events that seemed like ancient history from the days of Methuselah (e.g. B.C.E. times).  

Yet, the fact that my elders are living to retell those experiences speaks to how their stories were was not ancient history at all, but a very recent past that still has ramifications today. Now an adult, I realize life is indeed but a vapor (c.f. the Apostle James). The first month of the pandemic proved this to be true when a cousin near my age caught the then-mysterious virus and died before the national quarantine was declared. Consequently, I became nervous that our stories would be lost the moment the casket was closed for a final time in the global catastrophe we were facing. 

So I hit the record button and began asking as many questions as my relatives could stand. It was an eye-opening and cathartic hobby. I discovered many jewels about my parents, grandparents, and other relatives including their tenacity, courage, heartbreak, and love of community. 

For example, my jaw dropped when my dad, James Davenport, shared that he had been arrested as a small, 12- year-old child in the infamous and cruel jailing of peaceful children demonstrators in Jackson, MS during the monumental Civil Rights Movement of 1963. 

Say what?!

My emotions ranged from:

*shock (how did I not know this consequential fact about one of the closest people to me),

*to horror (he was separated from his family for almost a week without today’s modern conveniences of a cell phone during a time of militaristic war being waged on a people that simply wanted human rights),

*to deep empathy for my dad, a mere fun-loving child, facing head-on such hatred not long before his mother died unexpectedly of cancer,

*to pride to learn about yet another time my family members have courageously served the empowerment and advancement of our community despite the life-or-death risks,

*to disgust that the world, specifically Mississippi, was in such a state that they would jail not just adults or even college students but also junior high school students – mere babes – that had not done anything wrong other than peacefully and legally assemble. The authorities went so far as to cold-heartedly call those precious children “rats” as recorded in the local newspaper, The Clarion Ledger.

Hear more about the harrowing events my dad faced directly from him in this video here:

After sitting patiently for the first time in my life to hear this whole experience, my dad’s sudden move to the North out of harm’s way made sense.

Prior to the forced break of the pandemic, I had heard pieces of my dad’s story, mainly that he had been arrested and had to move to Michigan to stay out of trouble. 

I had never asked or even sat long enough to get the full story so I assumed that my dad had been a troubled teen, a thug even. I guess I was even ashamed in my earlier years to ask because that ordeal was discussed as if he was a criminal. He was far from it! 

It is unimaginable to me that a child – my dear dad – had no contact with his family for almost a week (that’s how long it took for them to be bailed out by the NAACP). That God-awful imprisonment of mere children at the Mississippi Fairgrounds – yes, some were in the pig/horse pens –  was part of what ushered in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. 

As most of us know, the Civil Rights activists of the 1960s had literal targets on their backs. As a prime, tragic example, Medgar Evers, a prominent NAACP field representative for their area, was assassinated within weeks of my dad’s participation, striking fresh fear into everyone in Mississippi including Mama Dean, my dad’s grandmother. She knew what had happened to Emmett Till – another child – just up the proverbial Mississippi road at an arguably less hostile time than what they were facing that year. I say “arguably” since hostility goes both ways. In 1955 it was common for some of the white community in Mississippi to be hostile but the pushback of the 1960s garnered even more hostility (and hostile backlash) than my relatives had ever seen. 

Just a few days before the Mississippi children demonstrated, there was the sit-in at the segregated Jackson, Mississippi Woolworth’s lunch counter, which made international headlines due to violence from white supremacists.  

Mama Dean felt that my dad could be targeted next. Her fears in Mississippi were not unwarranted, delusional or neurotic.

My aunt (my dad’s younger sister) Jacqueline shared:

“There was definitely a lot of praying and handwringing going on. My grandmother [Mama Dean] was so very worried about Jimi’s safety. Those were turbulent times and all of our lives felt like they hung in the balance. I remember hearing my grandmother pray that we would live through the night and that no one would harm us.  Yes, those were dangerous and scary times.” 

As a result, Mama Dean sent him north to live in Detroit, Michigan, hoping he would be out of harm’s way. While my dad’s mother Lula Bell battled and sadly succumbed to cancer, he moved in with his maternal aunt Mamie, her husband and children in Michigan. Interestingly, in watching Bel-Air (the re-imagining of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), it dawned on my dad for the first time in 60 years that he had lived out an alternate version of the original theme song’s lyrics, “and my [grand]mom got scared and said “You’re movin’ with your auntie and uncle…”

Today, some people borrow from the late and honorable Rep. John Lewis’s lexicon and call it “good trouble” but, to me, it is unthinkable for an unjust, hateful system to require children to be martyrs. I do not think there is anything good about it. It is one thing for an adult to consent to putting her life on the line for human rights but it is reprehensible for a dehumanizing system (e.g. the policies of Mississippi) to put a child in that precarious position. 

For more information, check out these stories:

1. Hear Freedom Rider Dave Dennis Sr. (in this snippet from the award-winning Eyes on the Prize Documentary) share how the involvement of students like my dad in Jackson, MS helped the adults to eventually participate and usher in the 1964 Voting Rights Act. Wow!   
2. To learn more about how children influenced and contributed to the Civil Rights Movement as a whole, check out this video.

What were your or your family’s experiences during those years? Share below (by scrolling all the way down) and I would love for you to take the time to ask and hit record like I did. You may discover some gems about your family too. 

From the Editors: If you want to gather your family’s oral history, check out this three-part post on BitterSweet about how the descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings did it.  AND, if you would like to go deeper, here is a link to an art exhibit based on the sit-ins at Woolworth’s, titled Protesting for Life, Freedom, and Dignity.

 

Author: Lee Davenport holds degrees in business, legal, and Bible studies, and is an international real estate educator (as well as a former RE/MAX managing broker and agent).  Notably, her doctoral research (studying the lead generation success strategies of top agents) is published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Real Estate Education and Practice — in other words, she knows her stuff!  She has been recognized by Inman News and numerous real estate organizations as one of the top 30 U.S. real estate coaches. She was honored to be one of the inaugural DEI coaches for the University of Michigan’s MPact DEI Certificate Program. Plus, Dr. Lee, who has been affectionately dubbed “The Fair Housing Equalizer” has a provocative monthly column on race and real estate in Inman News (which is the top-rated online real estate news site for real estate professionals with over 2 million page views per month). Her column has spurred industry changes [like this where her local REALTORS® association issued its first formal apology for its role and complicity in discriminatory housing].

Additionally, Dr. Lee has been featured by Forbes Magazine, CBS, REALTOR® Magazine, and the Huffington Post to name a few.  She is one of the four hosts for the Atlanta REALTORS® Rundown podcast produced by the Atlanta REALTORS® Association. Her thought-provoking YouTube channel has attracted over 500,000 views and counting. 

She is fondly known for helping workshop audiences say, “Aha!” through her fun games used to explain essential technology, everyday business tasks, and how our God-given personalities can directly influence our level of success.

Click the following to be taken to Dr. Lee’s website, or Instagram, and she can be reached by email at Lee@LearnWithDrLee.com.

Dr. Davenport photographed by Kai Byrd.

©2023, Lee Davenport. All rights reserved. 

 

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