Benjamin Elton Cox

Benjamin Elton Cox (June 19, 1931 – June 12, 2011) was an American civil rights movement activist and preacher. Cox participated in the 1961 Freedom Riders protest and was interviewed in the 2010 film of the same name.

Personal life and education

Cox was a native of Whiteville, Tennessee. He was a popular preacher in the area and received the name "Beltin' Elton" during the course of his freedom rides.

Cox was the seventh born of his parents' sixteen children. Cox later moved to Kankakee, Illinois at the age of five.

In December 1961, Cox was arrested in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and convicted of disturbing the peace. That conviction was appealed and upheld by the Louisiana Supreme Court, but overturned by the Supreme Court in Cox v. Louisiana. The Supreme Court held that state government cannot employ "breach of the peace" statutes against protesters engaging in peaceable demonstrations that may potentially incite violence.

Cox was arrested seventeen times over the course of a few decades.

Later life

Prior to retirement, he served as minister for Pilgrim Congregational Church in High Point, North Carolina. He later worked as chaplain at the VA Hospital in Urbana, Illinois, and finally, as a middle school counselor in Jackson, Tennessee. Cox died in June 2011, one week before his 80th birthday.