In the 1960s, a wave of non-violent resistance surged across the United States as college students took a stand for civil rights, famously engaging in what they called “good trouble.”
From arrests and sit-ins to confrontations with violent opposition, these young activists refused to accept the status quo, demanding integration and equality.
This movement began at Texas Southern University in Houston, where students from the Progressive Youth Association (PYA) took up the call for justice. The group was inspired by an incident involving a law student who had been wrongfully stopped by police, sparking a wave of activism.
Dr. Holcyon Sadberry Watkins, a key participant in Houston’s sit-ins, recalls the early days of the movement, saying the students were fed up with inequality and determined to make their voices heard.
“We organized because we had had an incident of one of the students in the law school. The police had stopped him, and he was mistreated. We were getting tired of this,” said Dr. Watkins. “The president of the university called us into a speaking hall and with an audience of students, he said, ‘it’s your turn to stand up and speak out.‘”
The students were then trained by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and organized their first sit-in at the former Weingarten Restaurant. Their goal was to challenge segregation. Watkins vividly remembers the experience.
“I walked inside, and there was an empty seat next to a white man. He spilled coffee on the table and told me to clean it up,” she recalled.
Despite the verbal and physical abuse, Dr. Watkins remained resolute.
“You belong here,” she says she told herself as she sat through the harassment. She says she was focused on the bigger goal.
Over time, the movement spread. Students from other universities joined the cause, including Joan Mulholland, a Freedom Rider who had been subjected to psychiatric counseling for participating in sit-ins while she was a student at Duke University.
Mulholland was instrumental in introducing SNCC to Stokely Carmichael, a key figure in the Black Power movement. She says late one night, she received a call from another SNCC member that had joined the Freedom Rides. He told her that they were trapped in a church in Montgomery, surrounded by the Ku Klux Klan.
Dr. Martin Luther King was also inside. She says they told her “Joan, we need help. Send more riders!”
She and other students flew to New Orleans and took the Illinois Central Train to Chicago. They got off at the Jackson, Mississippi stop, she was arrested after they all entered the “whites-only” waiting room at the bus station.
For Mulholland, the struggles of the Civil Rights Movement were deeply personal, and even dangerous. In the Hinds County Jail she says she and about 30 other people were put into a cell that was designed for four people. Then, she was transported to Parchman Farms Penitentiary.
“I’ll never forget my time in Parchman Penitentiary,” she shared.
Mulholland says after she was released, she was determined to make integration a “two-way street,” so, she enrolled in the Historically Black University, Tugaloo College. There, she continued her activism and worked to organize sit-ins.
Jackson, Mississippi is also home to Hezekiah Watkins, who was only 13 when he first joined the movement. He remembers the moment he saw the Freedom Riders on national television and felt compelled to take action.
“I saw people being beat, spat on, and drug by their hair. I had to be a part of that,” he recalled.
Along with a friend, he biked to the Jackson bus station to meet the Freedom Riders, where he was arrested and placed on death row at Parchman Penitentiary at just 13 years old.
Reflecting on his harrowing experience, Watkins said, “I never thought I’d see my family again. Those 13 days will always stay with me. It was a scar that never healed.”
Despite this, Watkins left prison determined to continue fighting for freedom. He is the youngest and most arrested Freedom Rider, detained a staggering 109 times. Today, he shares his story at the Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, Mississippi—the same city where he was arrested and put on death row.
The legacy of these courageous activists is undeniable. Thanks to their tireless work, the South was eventually desegregated, and African Americans won the right to vote. Today, Houston, like much of the country, stands as a testament to the diversity and progress that these brave individuals helped to create.
The story of their sacrifices and triumphs remains an important chapter in American history, reminding us that freedom was not easily won, but fought for through “good trouble.”
