Mississippi's Exiled Daughter: How My Civil Rights Baptism Under Fire Shaped My Life

In 1961, 16-year-old Brenda Travis was a youth leader of the NAACP branch in her hometown of McComb, Mississippi. She joined in the early stages of voter registration, and when the Freedom Rides and direct action reached McComb, she and two SNCC workers sat-in at the local bus station. That led to her first arrest and jailing, which resulted in her being expelled and leading a protest walkout from her high school. Thrown in jail for a second time, she was eventually released on the conditio...