During a dramatic three-day period in March 1961, nine students from historically Black Tougaloo College staged sit-ins at the all-white Main Library in Jackson, Mississippi. The students conducted their protest, were arrested, held in jail overnight, and convicted of "breach of peace"—the first time that charge had ever been brought in a Mississippi courtroom. On day three, police attacked a peaceful crowd of observers awaiting the trial's outcome, the first known use of police dogs on a peaceful gathering during the civil rights era.

The protests occurred while Mississippi was preparing to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the state's secession from the Union and the commencement of the Civil War. The library sit-in preempted the state's Confederate extravaganza which brought more than thirty thousand mostly white observers into the streets of Jackson while the students sat in jail, further inflaming passions on both sides.

In The Tougaloo Nine, M. J. O'Brien delves into Tougaloo College's culture of resistance, Mississippi's determination to preserve segregation, and the early stirrings of the student movement in Jackson. Through numerous interviews and years of detailed research, O'Brien tells the stories of these courageous African American students.