Students at Mississippi Vocational College initiated a boycott to demand the right to create a Student Government Association in February 1957, marking the first large-scale disruptive event initiated at a Black college in Mississippi during the middle 20th century. Their actions did not directly attack White supremacy. But, they were influenced by the increasingly aggressive nature in which Blacks advanced their grievances in the immediate post-Brown v. Board of Education era and the tactics popularized in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Forty percent of the Mississippi Vocational student body staged a 36-hour walkout to demand their own student government to act as a liaison with the campus administration. President James White and the all-White board of trustees promised to discuss the issue with students, and the walkout ended peacefully. However, it was not until the 1961-1962 academic year that students were allowed to create such an organization, and even then it was heavily censored by the administration.
Mississippi Vocational students never stated an intention to use the group for off-campus political aims. The movement had yet to gain a foothold in Mississippi at the time of the boycott, and students were more interested in campus advocacy issues. But, their demand for a democratic voice on campus rattled White trustees and Black campus administrators and demonstrated that students would take drastic steps to achieve their ends.
