Hartman Turnbow (March 20, 1905 – August 15, 1988)[1][2] was a Mississippi farmer, orator, and activist during the Civil Rights Movement.
On April 9, 1963, Turnbow was one of the first African Americans to attempt to register to vote in Mississippi, along with a group called the "First Fourteen".
The "First Fourteen" were approached by a myriad of whites who attempted to intimidate and prevent the group from registering to vote.
In a thick mob of angry whites, deputy sheriff, Andrew Smith, with his hand on his gun holster, called out, "All right now, who will be the first?"
Hartman Turnbow famously confronted Martin Luther King Jr. informing him: "This nonviolent stuff ain't no good.
Being consistent with the foundation of the freedom movement, Turnbow explained, "I wasn't being non-nonviolent, I was just protectin' my family."
[7][11] SNCC's Joyce Ladner accompanied Turnbow and his wife in Atlantic City for the 1964 Democratic National Convention.
Bob Moses, a non-Mississippi voter registration worker, was also on the scene of investigation taking pictures of the fire.
Hartman Turnbow was attacked and framed for arson because he was one of the first African Americans that step forward to vote in Mississippi.
[8][15] In a reflection on his attack, Turnbow states, Anybody had'a just told me 'fore it happened that conditions would make this much change between the white and the black in Holmes County here where I live, why I'da just said, "you're lyin'.
[17] Turnbow's courageous effort to register to vote succeeded and gave Black people in the South a voice regarding which politicians would represent them.
Voting rights activist Sue (Lorenzi) Sojourner said this about Turnbow's oration: His words flowed rapidly with lilting energy.
[5]An example of the way Turnbow spoke can be found in this excerpt, when during Freedom Summer he tried to persuade more black Mississippians to vote: That lynching I was tellin you about—that one with the burning with the 'cetylene torch—that 'n was a turning point.
We was all together trying to do something … The Negro ain't gonna stand fo all that beating and lynching and bombing and stuff.