EarthQuake'S BANDAIDS

Harlem, 2019

Binding in the *1950s*

Jim McHarris was a trans man who was born in Mississippi in 1924. He transitioned in his early teens and traveled around the country taking various jobs: short order cook, cab driver, gas station attendant, auto mechanic, shipyard worker, and preacher. He eventually returned to Mississippi and settled in Kosciusko.

In 1954, he was pulled over and arrested. During the pat-down, he revealed his birth sex to the officers but they didn’t believe him, so McHarris was forced to strip naked in front of a judge and the police. He served 30 days at a prison farm. Although McHarris dressed in men’s clothes he was housed with female prisoners. After his release, he was shunned by the community and left Kosciusko, continuing to live as a man.

His story was unearthed in a 1954 issue of Ebony magazine in which Jim is quoted as having said, “I ain’t done nothing wrong and I ain’t breaking no laws.”