Mary Jo Osgood

SNCC, 1965-67, Mississippi
Current Residence: Austin, TX
Email: maryjoosgood@yahoo.com

As an 18 year old high school student from Colorado, I participated in the Congressional Challenge to unseat the Miss Democratic Party and seat the Miss Freedom Democratic Party. In the Summer, of '65 I arrived by bus to Jackson, where 12 hours later I was arrested for breech of the peace and jailed for 18 days. As a white woman, I received better treatment the others who were held at the fairgrounds. I remember my friend, Artie Feinglass from Queens, NY.

Stokely was in the same jail while I was there.

I worked in Jackson, Canton and later Moss Point with Ike and Nettie Sellers and many others. Being a white women was a blessing and a curse and I would do it again if needed. I have never seen the kind of hate as I experience in Mississippi in the summer of 1965.


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