A Freedom Rider at Rest: Bill Mahoney of Atlanta

February 12, 2016 

The September 1961 edition of “Liberation,” featuring an article by Atlanta resident William Mahoney.

GREAT IS THEIR REWARD IN HEAVEN

Ecclesiasticus (Sira) 44:1: ” Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us.”
A former footsoldier (1 of 463) in the struggle for Civil Rights currently resides about a block from the tomb of Martin Luther King. I have seen him around for years, but have just discovered his story.

He has some mental health challenges, and is not too communicative these days. He has, however, left a paper trail of his activity as a Freedom Rider in the very early sixties. While I was a four-year-old child, watching Captain Kangaroo, Bill Mahoney was fighting to make the world a better place. A few years ago, Berean Pastor Fredrick Russell alluded to Coffin Missionaries during a sermon. In the nineteenth century, some foreign mission posts were so dangerous that those who travelled to them used coffins to transport their belongings. There were good odds that they might come in handy.

The September 1961 edition of “Liberation,” contained an article by William Mahoney on his experiences as a Freedom Rider, one entitled “In Pursuit of Freedom.” He was a twentieth-century Coffin Missionary. The cover of this journal is displayed above. It features a crystal clear statement concerning the level of commitment required of participants in the struggle for Civil Rights who elected to attempt to beard the lion in his den. Some rides South were sponsored by CORE or SNCC. Bill Mahoney was associated with NAG (the Nonviolent Action Group, a SNCC affiliate) while attending Howard University. Mr. Mahoney was at Howard at the same time that Stokely Carmichael was.

Freedom Rider William Mahoney has the questionable distinction of inhabiting quarters that are probably smaller than your walk-in closet.

A “Black History Month” display in the lobby of William Mahoney’s residence (O’Hearn House) pays tribute to him, and was the source of my recent enlightenment about the past of this mild-mannered individual. A short biography is featured in this display. It mentions a deal that was struck between Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett in regard to the Freedom Riders. The Governor would try to spare the Riders from further martyrdoms by keeping them “on ice.” Mr. Mahoney was jailed as a consequence of this bargain. The Kennedys were focused on their own agenda (a specialty of theirs), and felt the Freedom Rides to be a distraction. David Brinkley also thought that they were being unreasonable. Their actions were tarnishing the overseas image of the United States, primarily by highlighting some major flaws. The administration petitioned the Freedom Riders for a “cooling off period.” James Farmer, a leader of CORE, famously responded, “We have been cooling off for 350 years, and if we cooled off any more, we’d be in a deep freeze!”

In his 1961 description of his involvement with the Freedom Riders, William Mahoney cites the May 14th incendiary attack on a bus outside Anniston, Alabama as the factor that motivated him to attach himself to the movement. A fellow student and NAG member, Henry Thomas, was struck on the head as he left the flaming bus. Reading about this “infuriated” Mr. Maloney. He joined some protestors at the White House (a locale that is very convenient to Howard students), and at the Washington Trailways station. He notes in his article that people who witnessed these demonstrations seemed less detached than usual.

William Mahoney today. I refer to him as “The Professor.” He is a very literate person.

Two fellow members of NAG stopped by to say farewell to Mr. Mahoney before departing for Montgomery, Alabama. Upon arriving in the first capitol of the Confederacy, the two were embroiled in a clash with an angry white mob which surrounded a meeting at the First Baptist Church. The National Guard was called out, and the Riders went into hiding. One of them, Paul Detriecht, called NAG headquarters from his place of concealment in order to urgently request as many reinforcements as could be recruited. Bill Mahoney made a decision to join with them.  He knew that it would upset his parents, but to (tritely) summarize his attitude, I will note that “you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” Mr. Mahoney writes that even Gandhi and Tolstoy upset their families. On May 26th, Mahoney and a companion, Frank Hunt, “rode the dog” south to Montgomery. It would be helpful to the reader at this point to know that Frank Hunt is black, but William Mahoney is so fair-skinned and blue-eyed that it would require a genealogical chart to verify that he is, indeed, an African-American.

Shortly into the ride, a rest stop in Virginia established the pattern for all subsequent rest stops south of the Mason-Dixon. White bus travelers enjoyed the use of sparkling, modern facilities. Black patrons were consigned to separate, and incredibly unequal facilities (filthy, overcrowded shacks, writes Mr. Mahoney). During the journey, Mahoney and Hunt eavesdropped on the conversations of their fellow travelers. The Freedom Rides were a hot topic. One passenger opined that they should all be “hung from the nearest tree.” A black lady loudly lamented her lot in life, but adjacent whites paid her no heed. Mr. Mahoney says that it was just as if she were “invisible” to them.

Photo of the May 14th incendiary attack on a bus outside Anniston, Alabama, one that contained Freedom Riders, friends of Bill Mahoney.

Arrival in Montgomery was like arrival in a war zone. Some of the National Guardsmen present wore fierce-looking beards, preparatory to participating in events commemorating the centennial of the Civil War. Local organizers drove the pair to Reverend Ralph David Abernathy‘s house. The Reverend was not there to greet them, as he was in jail at the time. They joined with seven other demonstrators at the parsonage, then proceeded back to the bus station in order to continue their perilous journey. The station was swarming with Guardsmen. The weekend warriors escorted the newly embarked contingent all the way to the Mississippi border. The commanding officer boarded the bus at the crossing, and politely informed the protestors that they could expect a long stay in the “Magnolia State.” The group was continually hassled enroute to Jackson, and the tension made it seem like a relief when they were arrested upon arrival at the Mississippi capitol, there by the Natchez Trace.

At the police station, Bill Mahoney was interrogated. He asked the interviewing officer if he was aware of how unfavorable his actions were from the standpoint of international opinion. The officer responded that the South had certain traditions that must be respected. The overlords of the station house displayed what manner of “Southern hospitality” the new guests could expect (they were true to the stereotypical image, one of ignorant and sadistic hostility). The next morning found the Riders in a courtroom, facing Judge James L. Spencer (this link about a trial featuring Judge Spencer and 27 Riders mentions one of Mr. Mahoney’s “recruiters,” Paul Detriecht, and could be described, in the words of Woody Allen, as a “mockery of a travesty of a sham”). Mr. Mahoney and company were found to be “guilty as charged,” and fined $200. They had the option of working it off at the rate of $3 a day. Bill Mahoney describes the reaction of the defendants to this news by employing a synonym for “money” that is no longer comprehensible to most. They would not pay Mississippi a “continental.”

Reverends Ralph David Abernathy and Martin Luther King. hunkered down in Abernathy’s Montgomery church, an angry throng gathered outside.

The prisoners were now established in the county jail. There, they met with some Riders who had just returned from the county penal farm. This later group had been beaten, along with a lady prisoner, with blackjacks in response to their “insubordination.” They were off of the farm due to intervention by the FBI, who were made aware of the beating incident (J. Edgar, a minion of Satan, must have been playing ball with the Kennedys, at least for the present). The warden who attacked the group pleaded self-defense, and was acquitted.

The “lengthy visit” prophesized by the commander of the Alabama Guardsmen now came to pass. Mr. Mahoney’s description of the crowded group’s incarceration period seems to liken their quarters to the Black Hole of Calcutta. The prisoners displayed respect to their jailers, and this helped break down an initially hostile attitude that was exhibited by the authorities (one counter-intuitive “fruit” of non-violence). Some scalawags and turncoat fellow prisoners bore calamitous gossip to the media from inside the jail. The public was hungry to hear the worst about the incarcerated Riders. Native Mississippi blacks (despite white assertions that they were all “happy’) now joined in the protests, and this served to crowd the jail even further as more people were arrested. To relieve this crowding, a large group of prisoners was trucked off to Parchman Penitentiary (this hell-hole has a current capacity for 4,840 souls).

The Jackson, Mississippi police department is preparing a warm welcome for this busload of visitors.

Upon arrival at the prison, a pair of white Riders determined to “play dead” as a protest to their unmerited captivity. The guards mocked them. “What you want to act like that for? There ain’t no newspapermen around here!” An attempt was made to motivate the recalcitrant duo with an electric cattle prod. This did not have the desired effect, so the authorities stripped the pair naked and threw them in a cell. Mr. Mahoney (a little naively) remarks that this kind of treatment is against the law (and I must add that the law means absolutely nothing to many, if not most “authorities”). Mr. Mahoney describes some debates with the guards about the nature of civil disobedience. The Riders quote Thoreau on this topic, to the effect that under an unjust government, the only place for a just man is prison (Thoreau is an inspirational thinker, but his single night in jail was a walk in the park compared to the real McCoy).

The jailers took exception to the singing of the Riders (reminiscent of Acts 16:25: “And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them”). The bulls took away their mattresses as punishment. To paraphrase by reference to Cool Hand Luke , six Riders were forced to spend “a night in the box.” The prisoners kept up their morale thanks to a shared ethos, a code of conduct they created for themselves, and through solidarity as manifested in the traditions of dissent (singing, and more singing). William Mahoney describes three individuals who shared his captivity, and notes the three varied reasons that motivated them to join in the good fight; political, emotional, and moral. The author spent a symbolically meaningful 40 days in prison. Spiritual differences among the Riders were noted, but the teaching of Gandhi served to keep them substantially united. Upon release from the Penitentiary, Mr. Mahoney was returned to the regular jail in a pickup truck. The sights along the Mississippi roadside furnish an artistic finish to the 1961 article, replicated just below the photo.




Colored workers were leaving the fields as we sped down the highway. The women were clad in gay-colored prints, making me think of pictures the old people used to paint in my mind of slave days. How my heart hurt every time we passed a car driven by a Negro, for he would, upon hearing our escort’s siren, come to a stop in the grass by the side of the road, whereas a white driver would only move to the edge of the road and reduce his speed.

Before parting for our various destinations we stood in a circle, grasped hands and sang a song called “We Will Meet Again.” As I looked round the circle at my companions’ serious faces and saw the furrowed brows of the 19- and 20-year-old men and women, I knew that we would meet again.

This experience was no slumber party. It contributed significantly to the epic narrative of the Civil Rights Movement. It is nice to know that I can visit a living representative of this era, and the author of this article, at anytime after 7:30 a.m. by simply announcing myself to the “concierge” at his residence, temporarily relinquishing my I.D., then placing an adhesive “visitor” sticker on my breast. You can also do this. Like all O’Hearn House residents, he exists in a state of abject poverty. I plan on giving him a few bucks the next time I see him, and perhaps you may wish to a well. You can remit your pittance, your prayers, or you platitudes to:

Mr. William Mahoney
c/o  O’Hearn  House
16 WM Holmes Borders Dr. NE
Atlanta, GA 30312

Another notable resident of Atlanta who got thrown into Parchman Penitentiary. Congressman John Lewis. He is much better known than Bill Mahoney, though they shared nearly identical burdens for a season.