A Mississippi Freedom Trail Marker will be erected in McComb to commemorate Burglund High School students who walked out of school in October 1961 in protest of the arrest of a classmate for participating in a sit-in.
The Mississippi Humanities Council said the former high school, which is now Higgins Middle School, is among 12 locations in the state that played a role in the civil rights movement that will be receiving a commemorative marker.
On Oct. 4, 1961, 119 students walked off the campus of the all-Black high school to protest principal C.D. Higgins’ decision not to re-admit Brenda Travis.
Travis, Ike Lewis and Bobby Talbert were arrested on Aug. 20, 1961, after the trio bought tickets at the Greyhound bus station in McComb but refused to leave their seats in the “whites only” waiting room.
All three were found guilty of disturbing the peace, fined and sentenced to jail time. That sit-in was the second such attempt to desegregate areas in Pike County.
The students, ranging from age 13 to 19, marched from the high school to city hall, where they were arrested for breaching the peace.
They were expelled from Burglund High for the remainder of the year. Because seniors — Travis among them — weren’t able to finish school at Burglund, many went on to receive diplomas from the private J.D. Campbell College in Jackson, whose president, Dr. Robert M. Stevens, invited the students to enroll.
The other 11 people, places and events receiving markers are Victoria Gray Adams in Hattiesburg, Dorie and Joyce Ladner in Palmer’s Crossing, Henry Reaves and the Benton County Movement, the Alexander vs. Holmes school desegregation case in Lexington, the Grenada School Integration Crisis, Lawrence Guyot in Pass Christian, Annie Devine in Canton, the United League of Mississippi in Holly Springs, the Meridian Movement, Benjamin Murphy and the Laurel Movement and the Natchez NAACP Headquarters.
