Douglas MacArthur Cotton

Released
Date of birth:23. 04. 1942
Age:84
Gender:Male
Era:1960s
State:Mississippi
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Douglas MacArthur Cotton

Biography

Douglas MacArthur Cotton was a Mississippi Freedom Rider and SNCC voter-registration organizer. His imprisonment included a Freedom Ride case and a later Greenwood prosecution that sent him to the county farm and Parchman. His sworn account also documents a separate 1964 detention in Natchez.

Charles Payne’s interview-based history describes Douglas MacArthur Cotton and George Greene sharing a cold, unlit punishment cell at Parchman for ten days, with too little space to lie down. This is a description of conditions within the existing imprisonment period, not an additional custody term.

Source: Charles Payne, I’ve Got the Light of Freedom, PDF page 158.

Cases

Charges: Freedom Ride arrest after attempting to buy a ticket at the segregated bus station
Arrested: 1961
Incarcerated: 1961
Sentence: Thirty-nine days on death row are documented. Arrest and imprisonment began in 1961; exact endpoints and sentence unverified. Placement on death row does not imply a death sentence.
Charges: Disturbing the peace during Greenwood voter registration
Arrested: Jun 25, 1963
Sentenced: Jun 25, 1963
Incarcerated: Jun 25, 1963
Released: August 1963
Sentence: Convicted June 25, 1963; four months hard labor and $200 fine. His affidavit records 55 days at Parchman after county-farm confinement. Released on bond in August 1963; exact day unverified.
Charges: Initially held for auto-theft investigation; subsequently charged with vagrancy
Arrested: February 1964
Incarcerated: February 1964
Released: 1964
Sentence: Thirty hours detained with George Greene during voter-registration work in Natchez in late February 1964. Exact days and disposition unverified.

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