MEMPHIS, TN (abc24.com) - Former Freedom Rider Joan Mulholland, a Virginia native who dropped out of college to join the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960's, paid a visit to the National Civil Rights Museum to take a look back at part of her history.
"This is awesome," Mulholland said while sitting at the lunch counter depicting her sit-in at the Woolworth in Jackson, Mississippi on May 28, 1963. She told abc24.com that sit-in "was pretty hairy."
Mulholland said when she made the decision to leave Duke University and join the fight against segregation, her family didn't like it. "Mother didn't take to this very well. She was from rural Georgia and a product of her environment," she said.
While thinking back to her trip and subsequent arrest in Jackson for being a part of the Freedom Riders, Mulholland shared her most vivid memory of that experience.
"I stepped out the paddy wagon as a Freedom Rider in Jackson, Mississippi, the police reached out to help me down but then it suddenly hit him, 'she's the outside agitator,' and he jerked back."
She said she joined the movement because her Christian faith told her that was the right thing to do and segregation had to end.
