Montgomery County Jail - Winona, MS

On June 9, 1963, Fannie Lou Hamer was arrested outside Staley’s Café in Winona, Mississippi. She and her six colleagues: Euvester Simpson, 17, Annell Ponder, Ruth Davis, James West, Rosemary Freeman and 15-year-old June Johnson were returning via a Continental Trailways Bus from a voter education workshop near Charleston, South Carolina. 

The Montgomery County Jail used to occupy this piece of land on Sterling and Oak Streets and all six were brought here - to be held, tortured, and perhaps even murdered. Hamer, Ponder and Johnson were beaten. But Hamer’s was particularly severe as State Highway Patrolman John Lutellas Basinger tracked down her name (and thus activism) in Sunflower County. Hamer was falsely charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Her injuries were so severe, she didn’t allow her immediate family to see her for several weeks. 

Hamer suffered permanent injuries from the beating, inflicted on her by two Black trustees (inmates): Roosevelt Knox and Sol Poe, forced by the law enforcement officials to participate in their crimes.

The five white Winona law enforcement officials involved were eventually arrested. And Hamer later traveled to Washington, DC where she allowed the FBI to photograph her bruised and battered body and later be used as evidence during a federal trial. The five men were tried and found not guilty by an all-male and all-white federal jury.

A historical marker was unveiled on the jail site in June 2023, 60 years after the vicious assault on Hamer and the others to commemorate the tragic, but historic events of that time. And another marker was placed near the location of Staley's Cafe and bus depot two years later in June 2024 where Hamer was assaulted and arrested.