Boris Johnson lectures the London Occupiers the same way the NYTimes lectured the Freedom Riders: Ok, you made your point, now go away.

London Mayor Boris Johnson on the London Occupiers in the New York Times this morning:

“An excellent point has been made” by the protesters, [Johnson] said, “but having made their point, it’s time for them to move on.“

http://nyti.ms/vonF4E

A New York Times editorial on the Freedom Riders on May 28, 1961:

The Freedom Riders have made their point. Now is the time for restraint, relaxation of tension and a cessation of their courageous, legal, peaceful but nonetheless provocative action in the South.

I doubt that Johnson will be any more successful than the Times was in persauding the demonstrators to stand down. The 1961 editorial came just as the Riders were launching the decisive phase of their campaign, filling the jails in Jackson, Mississippi, with protestors from around the country. Which phase resulted, the Times editors later conceded, in forcing the Kennedy Administraiton to enforce federal law in the South, and desegrate bus and train stations.     

New(ish) portrait: Christopher Epps, head of prisons in Mississippi, at Parchman

Christopher Epps at the entrance to Unit 17, Parchman, May 25, 2011.

Unit 17 was maximum security at the state penitentary, and for several weeks in the summer of 1961 its cells were home to the Freedom Riders. Epps was awaiting the arrival of the Riders who had returned to Mississippi, and Parchman, to mark their successful campaign's 50th anniversary.