When Miller G. Green was 18, he spent 39 days on death row at Mississippi State Penitentiary.
“I didn’t harm nobody,” the Country Club Hills resident said. “I didn’t even have a gun.”
Green was imprisoned because he used the white-only entrance of a Jackson, Miss., bus station and tried to purchase a ticket to New Orleans. The clerk told him to go to the back, and when Green refused, he was carried off to the city jail.
Green, now 66, told his story of imprisonment and life in the South during the 1960s, to students and faculty at Tinley Park High School.
A group of about 50 people gathered in the school’s auditorium to listen to Miller and other African-American presenters speak during the school’s Black History Month expo.
Green said he tried to buy the ticket because he was a Freedom Rider. All Freedom Riders, who were mostly young college students, wanted to test the new laws that outlawed segregation in the terminals of buses, trains and waiting areas.
After being in the city jail for two weeks, Green and the other riders were taken to the county jail. From there, he was sent to the state penitentiary.
While in jail, he witnessed death first hand.
“When we went to take a shower, we had to pass the electric chair or the gas chamber,” he said in his soft voice. “So every day, we were reminded we could be put in the gas chamber.”
Green said that didn’t stop him from being a part of a movement he believed in.
“I believe in God and God calls on certain people to do certain things,” he said. “When God called on me to become a Freedom Rider I was engulfed with that spirit and He removed any fear I had.”
Green said he was ready to die rather then live in fear.
“When Emmett Till was killed, it traumatized the whole state. At night, when you walked and you heard a car coming, you automatically ran because you thought it was the Ku Klux Klan,” he said. “But because of those conditions, I would’ve rather been dead than live like that.”
Green said he was released from prison in the summer of 1961. He then went to college and participated in Civil Rights events. Now, the former boutique and salon owner said he travels the state speaking to local high school and college students about his experience as a Freedom Rider.
Senior Priscilla Perez helped organize the expo and was pleased with the turnout.
“I hope the students gained a new found appreciation and knowledge of African-American history,” the 17-year-old said. “I hope this event inspired them to do more for their community.”
Read the original article from SouthTown Star.
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