Includes index.

In the spring and summer of 1961, several hundred Americans - blacks and whites, men and women - converged on Jackson, Mississippi, to challenge state segregation laws. The Freedom Riders, as they came to be known, were determined to open up the South to civil rights: it was illegal for bus and train stations to discriminate, but most did so and were not interested in change. Over three hundred people were arrested and convicted of the charge "breach of the peace." The name, mug shot, and other personal details of each Freedom Rider arrested were duly recorded and saved by the agents of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, an investigative agency whose purpose was to "preform any and all acts deemed necessary and proper to protect the sovereignty of the state of Mississippi." By carefully recording names and preserving the mug shots, the Commission inadvertently created a testament to these heroes of the civil rights movement.