Charles O. Prickett

Dr. Charles O. Prickett is an attorney and a civil rights activist. He participated in the 1963 March on Washington, the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer, and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March.

Prickett often relates his experiences in schools, college classes, civic groups, and other public events. He attended the March on Washington, where Dr. King made his famous “I have a Dream” speech before hundreds of thousands on the Capital Mall. Prickett also personally met Dr. King while working on the Selma to Montgomery March. His personal experiences in the civil rights struggle, including the Mississippi Freedom Summer, are riveting and illustrate the difficult and dangerous ongoing struggle for civil rights in our country.

Prickett began his activities toward world peace and justice while in high school doing surveys of area businesses to determine if racial discrimination was occurring in his hometown, Carbondale, Illinois. In college he became a member of the local chapter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and began picketing local business that refused to serve or hire people of color.

His work in the civil rights movement was modeled after the philosophy of Gandhi, that of nonviolent resistance to racism and discrimination. He was drafted and was classified as a non-combatant conscientious objector. He served his alternative service working at the University of Chicago Hospitals and Clinics.

Prickett has written a book about his experiences in the civil rights movement, “Remembering Mississippi Freedom Summer” (Amazon). This book chronicles the experiences he had as an active participant of the civil rights movement, and includes his memoir of the March on Washington and his involvement on the Selma-Montgomery March.

His book contains nearly 80 pictures, mostly from a movie he helped make with Richard Beymer in 1964, “A Regular Bouquet”. This movie contains the only film record of Freedom Schools and voter registration efforts from the Freedom Summer. PBS in their series “Eyes On the Prize”, and “Freedom Summer” have used these images.

Prickett is currently an attorney in Santa Rosa, California, and has been a Pro Tem Judge in small claims and traffic court in California for over thirty years, and has served as a court appointed mediator for the Sonoma County Superior Court.