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The Lowndes County Friends of The Civil Rights Movement will host their Tenth Annual Civil Rights Weekend Celebration on April 25 – 27. Initially launched in 2015, the weekend of commemoration is aimed at honoring Lowndes County citizens who were vital to civil rights efforts in the 1960s.

One of the organizers is Katanga Shawn Mants whose father Robert “Bob” Mants, Jr., served as field director for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and moved to Lowndes County to raise his family and work for civil rights throughout his life.

“We do this every year to honor those people whose names you will never hear in history books, but who are pivotal to the civil rights movement in Lowndes County and, we think, throughout the United States,” Katanga Mants said. “We started off wanting to recognize the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march, and we realized that so much effort and emphasis was put on going to Selma, going to Montgomery, that the story of Lowndes County was being left out.

Events kick off on Friday, when community members are encouraged to wear bibbed overalls in memory of Bob Mants.

“[Wearing] bibbed overalls were a sign of protests during the 1960s,” Katanga explained. “We thought this would be something interesting to do that’s not very cost intensive… It’s a reminder of where we’ve come from and, in some instances, where we still are.”

On Saturday at 11 a.m., a commemorative ceremony at the Lowndes County Courthouse honoring civil rights workers will feature keynote speaker Ruby Sales, who was arrested as one of 30 people demonstrating in Fort Deposit on Aug. 14, 1965. After the protestors’ release, Episcopal seminarian Jonathan Daniels, sustained a fatal gunshot wound for Sales, pushing her aside when the group was threatened by shotgun-wielding Tom Coleman.

“These observances are very important,” said fellow organizer Arthur Nelson. “They [honor] those who took the [civil rights] burdens in the heat of the day. Those folks we try to recognize are the ones who played a major role in the civil rights movement for Lowndes County.”

The weekend culminates in an old-fashioned mass meeting and concert Sunday, April 27 from 3 – 5 p.m. at First Baptist Church, 546 Oak Street in White Hall.

Bob Mants would have celebrated his 82nd birthday on April 25. As part of the emphasis, Katanga said she works to make sure that the civil rights work he and others labored to complete is remembered.

“Dad probably wouldn’t have wanted to be recognized for the work he did,” she reflected. “But I make sure that I do [honor him] because his focus was for the people of Lowndes County. He brought us here because he loved Lowndes County and what Lowndes County stood for. And, so, we do try and honor him.”