Biography
James Forman served as executive secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from 1961 to 1966, the years of SNCC's greatest impact, and was the principal administrator behind the southern voter registration campaigns. He was arrested numerous times during civil rights organizing in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, including major arrests during the 1961 McComb voter registration drive and the 1965 Selma campaign. He later authored the 1969 Black Manifesto, which demanded reparations from white American churches and synagogues for slavery and segregation.
On December 10, 1961, Forman was one of eight interracial Freedom Riders arrested in Albany, Georgia after the group attempted to use the white waiting room at the train station — the arrests that helped ignite the Albany Movement. Police charged the riders with disorderly conduct, obstructing traffic, and failure to obey an officer; they were taken to Albany police headquarters. The precise release date and disposition are not established in the catalog record.
