Civil rights movement

=== ''Gates v. Collier'' ===
[[File:MississippiStatePen.jpg|thumb|[[Mississippi State Penitentiary]]]]

Conditions at the [[Mississippi State Penitentiary]] at Parchman, then known as Parchman Farm, became part of the public discussion of civil rights after activists were imprisoned there. In the spring of 1961, Freedom Riders came to the South to test the [[Desegregation in the United States|desegregation]] of public facilities. By the end of June 1963, Freedom Riders had been convicted in [[Jackson, Mississippi]].<ref>{{Cite news |title=Riding On |magazine=Time |date=July 7, 1961 |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,872521,00.html?promoid=googlep |access-date=October 23, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080304105758/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,872521,00.html?promoid=googlep |archive-date=March 4, 2008}}</ref> Many were jailed in Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman. Mississippi employed the [[Trusty system (prison)|trusty system]], a hierarchical order of inmates that used some inmates to control and enforce punishment of other inmates.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dsl.psu.edu/civilrights/chapter1.html |title=ACLU Parchman Prison |access-date=November 29, 2007  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080307222545/http://www.dsl.psu.edu/civilrights/chapter1.html |archive-date=March 7, 2008}}</ref>

In 1970 the civil rights lawyer Roy Haber began taking statements from inmates. He collected 50 pages of details of murders, rapes, beatings and other abuses suffered by the inmates from 1969 to 1971 at Mississippi State Penitentiary. In a [[landmark case]] known as ''[[Gates v. Collier]]'' (1972), four inmates represented by Haber sued the superintendent of Parchman Farm for violating their rights under the [[United States Constitution]].

Federal Judge [[William C. Keady]] found in favor of the inmates, writing that Parchman Farm violated the civil rights of the inmates by inflicting [[cruel and unusual punishment]]. He ordered an immediate end to all unconstitutional conditions and practices. Racial segregation of inmates was abolished, as was the trusty system, which allowed certain inmates to have power and control over others.<ref name="hnet">{{cite web |url=http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=22500870194459 |title=Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice |access-date=August 28, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060826214105/http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=22500870194459 |archive-date=August 26, 2006 }}</ref>

The prison was renovated in 1972 after the scathing ruling by Keady, who wrote that the prison was an affront to "modern standards of decency." Among other reforms, the accommodations were made fit for human habitation. The system of trusties was abolished. (The prison had armed [[Life imprisonment|lifers]] with rifles and given them authority to oversee and guard other inmates, which led to many cases of abuse and murders.)<ref>{{cite web |last=Goldman |first=Robert M. |date=April 1997 |url=http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=22500870194459 |title="Worse Than Slavery": Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice&nbsp;– book review |publisher=Hnet-online |access-date=August 29, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060829200032/http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=22500870194459 |archive-date=August 29, 2006 }}</ref>

In integrated correctional facilities in northern and western states, blacks represented a disproportionate number of prisoners, in excess of their proportion of the general population. They were often treated as second-class citizens by white correctional officers. Blacks also represented a disproportionately high number of [[death row]] inmates. [[Eldridge Cleaver]]'s book ''[[Soul on Ice (book)|Soul on Ice]]'' was written from his experiences in the California correctional system; it contributed to black militancy.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cleaver |first=Eldridge |title=Soul on Ice |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=1967 |location=New York}}</ref>