The Parchman Ordeal

The Parchman Ordeal. Natchez Trails. , Beulah Missionary Baptist Church was organized in 1896 and built its existing church building in 1912. The church played a leading role in the Natchez Civil Rights Movement under the leadership of the Rev. Walter Logan, who served as pastor from 1961 until 2001. , On September 30, 1965, the City of Natchez obtained an injunction against demonstrations and marches that was aimed at both the NAACP and the Ku Klux Klan. , On Saturday, October 2, NAACP Field Secretary Charles Evers (center foreground) defied the court order and held a rally at Beulah Missionary Baptist Church followed by a protest march from the church. Evers and marchers left Beulah singing freedom songs and proceeded about a half block before coming to a police barricade. , The Natchez police chief met the marchers and asked them to disperse. Evers replied, “If we turn around now, we will turn around for years to come. I think now is the time to be counted, whatever the price may be.” Police arrested over 300 marchers. , On October 3-4, the NAACP held other rallies at Beulah to protest the Saturday arrests. Marchers again filed out of the church and were arrested. With the city jail filled to capacity, police delivered protestors to the City Auditorium which became a temporary detention center. , Many of the arrested protestors later boarded buses which delivered them to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, where both men and women were subjected to cruel and inhuman treatment before being released., The City Auditorium, which was off-limits to Natchez African Americans, served as a temporary detention center to house Civil Rights activists arrested over the weekend of October 2-3, 1965. During that weekend and the following Monday, more than 500 activists were arrested for participating in rallies and marches. , In 1965, Mary Ann Nichols and her young son boarded the bus to the Natchez City Auditorium before she was bused to the penitentiary at Parchman. Her mother came to the auditorium to pick up her son. , Apology, Honor, and Reconciliation , On the weekend of October 2-4, 2015, the fiftieth anniversary of what became known as the Parchman Ordeal, the Natchez community held a Reconciliation Weekend to honor the surviving victims and the memories of those who had passed. , During the weekend, the survivors attended a banquet in their honor and special events that included panel discussions in which they shared the experience and were recognized for their participation in one of the South's most successful Civil Rights movements. Weekend events included the reading of an official apology from the City of Natchez. , On Saturday, October 26, 2019, the community gathered at the Natchez City Auditorium, where victims were once jailed, to honor those who still survive and unveil the “Proud to Take a Stand Monument” with the names of almost 500 people unjustly arrested and jailed for violating an unconstitutional city ordinance without due process. Andrew Young, an icon of the Civil Rights Movement who visited Natchez in the 1960s, delivered the keynote address before the unveiling.