On March 27, 1961, nine students staged a read-in at the Jackson, Mississippi, public library designated for white patrons only. The Tougaloo Nine, as they became known, dared to challenge an entrenched system of segregation across the South. The Tougaloo students were mentored by Medgar Evers, Mississippi’s NAACP field secretary, in a push by civil rights groups to harness the energy and passion of young people in Mississippi and beyond. The daring demonstration forced Mississippians to reckon with racial segregation. Photo 1 shows the Tougaloo Nine, who included, from left, Joseph Jackson, Geraldine Edwards, James Cleo Bradford, Evelyn Pierce, Albert Lassiter, Ethel Sawyer, Meredith C. Anding Jr., Janice L. Jackson and Alfred Lee Cook. 📷: Jerry Keahey Sr., Courtesy of Tougaloo College Photo 2-3 show Ethel Sawyer Adolphe, who was 20 when she joined students at the whites-only library in Jackson, Mississippi. Sawyer, now 81, has no regrets. “I‘d do it again. I’d do it 10 times.” 📷: Jasper Colt Photo 4-5 show Geraldine Edwards-Hollis, past and present. Edwards-Hollis wore layers to help shield any potential blows: a black-and-white checkered jacket with three-quarter length sleeves, a round collar and black buttons down both sides of the front, a black skirt and trench coat with a matching hat. 📷: AP And Photo 6 shows Joseph Jackson at 23, who was president of Tougaloo’s NAACP Youth Council. Jackson had buried the pain of watching a white Greyhound bus driver hit his mother so hard she fell to the ground. At 10 years old, he could only help his mother, whose face was bloodied, to the back of the bus where Black passengers were forced to sit. “I couldn’t wait to step into that white-only library,” he said. 📷: Mugshots: Mississippi Department of Archives and History Read all of USA TODAY’s “Seven Days of 1961” series at sevendaysof1961.usatoday.com.