Cleveland Public Library will host Eric Etheridge, the journalist/photographer behind the new book Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders, at an author visit on Sunday, February 22, 2009, 2:00 p.m. FREE and open to the public, the event will take place at the Main Library, Louis Stokes Wing Auditorium, E. 6th Street and Superior Avenue. Miller Green, one of the original Freedom Riders, joins Eric Etheridge and shares his personal story.

A few years ago, Etheridge discovered mug shots of 328 Freedom Riders who had been arrested in Mississippi in 1961. These brave Americans, both black and white, traveled to Jackson, Mississippi, to fight for desegregation in bus and train stations, since the city continued to illegally segregate. The Freedom Riders were charged with “breach of peace” and jailed. The Jackson jails filled with supporters in three weeks.

Etheridge decided to locate, interview and photograph these Freedom Riders, and he includes eighty present-day photos of Freedom Riders in the book. He pairs their current portraits with the original mug shots and catches readers up on forty years of the subjects’ histories after their arrests. Sixteen portraits from Breach of Peace have since been included in the exhibition Road to Freedom at the High Museum in Atlanta.

Etheridge, a Vanderbilt University graduate, grew up in Mississippi. He has worked as an editor at George, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, The Nation and The New York Observer. He has also created websites for deja.com and The New York Times and edited Sidewalk at Microsoft. He lives in New York City with his wife Kate Browne, and daughter Maud. Call (216) 623-2955 for more information.

Location