Mulholland, Joan Trumpauer, 1941-

Joan Trumpauer Mulholland (born September 14, 1941) is an American civil rights activist who was active in the 1960s. She was one of the Freedom Riders who was arrested in Jackson, Mississippi in 1961, and was confined for two months in the Maximum Security Unit of the Mississippi State Penitentiary (known as "Parchman Farm").[1] The following year she was the first white student to enroll at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi and served as the local secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

She later worked as a teacher, and after her retirement she established the Joan Trumpauer Mulholland Foundation. The foundation is dedicated to educating youth about the Civil Rights Movement and how to become activists in their communities.

Early life
Joan Mulholland, born as Joan Trumpauer[2] in Washington, D.C., was raised in Arlington, Virginia.[3] Her great-grandparents were slave owners in Georgia, Mulholland attended Duke University for a year before she decided to drop out, in search for a greater meaning in her life. Having nowhere to go, she obtained menial jobs while putting efforts towards the Nonviolent Action Group from Howard University.[3] In the summer of 1961, the historic Freedom Riders, a group of black and white activists, challenged the legally segregated buses and bus stations of the south by refusing to travel separately. Mulholland, along with Stokely Carmichael (the activist and later SNCC chairman,who would later be known as Kwame Turre), Hank Thomas, and many others, took a different freedom ride. The group took a plane to New Orleans, then rode on the Illinois Central train to Jackson, Mississippi, with members of the Congress of Racial Equality.[4] She later worked at the Smithsonian Institution, the United States Department of Commerce, and the Justice Department, before teaching English as a second language.[10] Joan Mulholland is retired and lives in Virginia. She has five sons: