Mississippi's Exiled Daughter: How My Civil Rights Baptism Under Fire Shaped My Life

In 1961, 16-year-old Brenda Travis was a youth leader of the NAACP branch in her hometown of McComb, Mississippi. She joined in the early stages of voter registration, and when the Freedom Rides and direct action reached McComb, she and two SNCC workers sat-in at the local bus station. That led to her first arrest and jailing, which resulted in her being expelled and leading a protest walkout from her high school. Thrown in jail for a second time, she was eventually released on the condition that she leave the state. Her poignant memoir describes what gave her the courage at such a young age to fight segregation, how the movement unfolded in Mississippi, and what happened after she was forced to leave her family, friends, and fellow activists.

One of the civil rights workers who befriended her in McComb was the legendary activist Bob Moses, who contributed the Foreword to her book. A white educator and Vietnam war hero, J. Randall O'Brien, was deeply inspired by learning about her courage, and he contributed the Afterword.


About the Author
Brenda Travis (Author)
BRENDA TRAVIS was born a sharecropper's daughter in 1945 in McComb, Mississippi. At an early age, she joined in NAACP and SNCC sit-ins and voting rights activism in her hometown. Arrested and jailed, she was banished to a reform school and then legally exiled from the state. Over the years Brenda has continued her activism. She is now retired in Apple Valley, California, but she created a foundation in McComb to teach civil rights history and self awareness to today's youth, so she spends part of every year back in McComb, where she has been honored with a street named after her. She speaks widely to schools and groups about her historical experiences as a 1960s civil rights activist.

John Obee (Author)
JOHN OBEE served in the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi in the 1960's. He later worked at the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, during which time he obtained his law degree. He clerked for the Honorable Blair Moody, Jr. of the Michigan Supreme Court. For the last 30+ years, he has specialized in the litigation of Housing Discrimination cases. He was an Adjunct Professor of Law (Housing Discrimination Law) at Michigan State College of Law and has lectured nationally and internationally on discrimination issues.