Charles R. McLaurin

Charles R. McLaurin, was born in Jackson, Mississippi where he received his early education in the Jackson Public Schools and attended Jackson State and Mississippi Valley State Universities, studying Political Science and Black History.

            In 1961, McLaurin attended a mass meeting at the Masonic Temple in Jackson to see and hear a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Inspired by Dr. King, the next day McLaurin joined the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee or SNCC, and took part in Boycotts, sit-ins, picket demonstrations and voters registration drives in Jackson, Mississippi.  Early in 1962, McLaurin, was recruited to participate in an intensive training program preparing for a massive voter registration campaign in the Mississippi Delta.  McLaurin and two other SNCC organizers [Landy McNair and Charlie Cobb] came to Ruleville, in Sunflower County to mobilize black leadership, hold meetings on voter registration and to get persons 21 years and older to the court house in Indianola in an attempt to become registered voters.  After the first organized bus trip to Indianola, McLaurin met Fannie Lou Hamer, who had a beautiful singing voice, and was very out spoken.  These were the attributes that caught the attention of the national Civil Rights leadership.

            In 1963, McLaurin served as campaign manager for Fannie Lou Hamer in her bid for Congress from the second congressional district.  In 1964 McLaurin was a MFDP [Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party] Delegate from the Delta to the National Democratic Party Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.  McLaurin also directed the 1964 COFO [Congress of Federated Organizations] Freedom Summer Project in Sunflower County.  During the Freedom Summer Project, McLaurin and Mrs. Hamer became close friends and worked together until her death in 1977 on many social and political projects in Mississippi.

            McLaurin was arrested and jailed more than thirty (30) times for his voter registration and for refusing to obey Jim Crow segregation laws in Mississippi.

            After more than 20 years on the front of the Civil Rights movement.  McLaurin now makes his home in Indianola, currently employed as Assistant Public Works Director for the City of Indianola.  He is married and he and his wife Virginia have 3 sons and 2 grands.