<P> 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 of public facilities . By the end of June 1963, Freedom Riders had been convicted in Jackson, Mississippi . Many were jailed in Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman . Mississippi employed the trusty system, a hierarchical order of inmates that used some inmates to control and enforce punishment of other inmates . </P> <P> 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 . </P> <P> 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 . </P> <P> The prison was renovated in 1972 after the scathing ruling by Judge 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 lifers with rifles and given them authority to oversee and guard other inmates, which led to many abuses and murders .) </P>

When was lobbying used in the civil rights movement