Biography
The Reverend C. T. Vivian — Cordy Tindell Vivian, July 30, 1924 to July 17, 2020 — was a minister and a central strategist of the nonviolent movement, later a director of affiliates for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was arrested in Jackson, Mississippi as a Freedom Rider on May 24, 1961, and the Civil Rights Digital Library holds his named Sovereignty Commission arrest photograph from that day; he was among the riders sent to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, where he was beaten. The CRDL record does not establish his exact discharge date, so no release is entered here. The library also documents a much later arrest, with Hosea Williams in Forsyth County, Georgia on February 9, 1987, from which he was released on bond. His exact 1961 custody chronology remains to be resolved from court or penitentiary records.
