Freedom rides
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- Freedom Rider is also a song by Traffic
The Freedom Rides were a series of nonviolent, direct demonstrations performed in 1961 as part of the US civil rights movement. Volunteers, African American and White, many of whom were college students, called Freedom Riders, rode in interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the 1960 United States Supreme Court decision Boynton v. Virginia, (1960) 364 U.S. 454, which outlawed racial segregation in interstate transportation facilities, including bus stations and railroad terminals. A total of 436 Freedom Riders were arrested for trespassing, unlawful assembly, violating state and local "Jim Crow" laws, etc. All but a very small number were sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) while the others belonged to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). They followed on the heels of dramatic "sit-ins" against segregated lunch counters conducted by students and youth throughout the south beginning in 1960.
[edit] The Rides
Thirteen black and white Freedom Riders left Washington, D.C. on May 4, 1961, in two buses (one Greyhound and one Trailways) which were to take the group of mixed black and white protesters throughout the South to New Orleans. the Deep South and the worst areas of segregation and racism in America.
The names of that summer's riders included James L. Farmer, William Mahoney, John Lewis, Jim Zwerg, James Peck, George Bundy Smith, Frederick Leonard, and William Sloane Coffin, among others totalling 436. Three-fourths of the riders were under 30, mostly male and evenly divided between black and white.
Arguably, the Riders did not engage in civil disobedience since they had a clear legal right to disregard segregation laws in the states they visited concerning interstate transportation facilities. However, these volunteers still had to rely on non-violent resistance in facing both mob violence and mass arrest by authorities determined to stop the protest. The Freedom Riders faced much resistance against their cause but ultimately developed strong support from people both inside and outside the South for their efforts.
Meanwhile, the Federal Government was criticized for not making a concerted effort to protect the riders. However, in Montgomery, Ralph Abernathy's church held a rally supporting the Freedom Riders, and only intervention by federal marshals prevented disaster when the building was mobbed. Publicity from the rides and the violent reaction to them led to a stricter enforcement of the earlier Supreme Court decision in the form of an Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) ruling enforcing Boynton v. Virginia (discussed supra).
[edit] Violence and the rides
The worst violence that occurred during the Freedom Rides was when the buses approached Birmingham, Alabama. Police chief Eugene "Bull" Connor openly conspired with Ku Klux Klan members to beat and harass Freedom Riders. The Greyhound bus was firebombed in Anniston, Alabama, forcing those Freedom Riders to exit whereupon they were viciously beaten.
Meanwhile, a second group of riders left Nashville, Tennessee on May 14, 1961 headed for Birmingham, Alabama, where they joined with the first group of Freedom Riders on May 20, 1961. The U.S. Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, sent his assistant, John Seigenthaler Sr., to accompany the Freedom Riders. When the Trailways bus reached Birmingham, the other Freedom Riders were also viciously beaten by Klan members under police protection including FBI informant Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. Rowe loved nothing more than a good fight and was later implicated in Viola Liuzzo's murder during mass demonstrations in Selma, Alabama. Freedom Rider Jim Zwerg was badly injured and temporarily disfigured. Seigenthaler was knocked unconscious when he went to the aid of one of the passengers. The riders were forced to take refuge from mobs in a church.
All 19 protesters boarded a plane for New Orleans the next day rather than continue to subject themselves to the relentless violence of an angry mob. Nashville Student Movement demonstraters, led by Diane Nash and John Lewis, picked up where the original Freedom Riders left off by sending cars full of replacements to sit in at the Greyhound bus station in Birmhingham where Bull Connor deported them back to Tennessee before arresting them upon their return. These courageous acts kept the Freedom Rides going at a critical juncture in the civil rights movement.
Thus the Freedom Rides established great credibility with progressive blacks and whites throughout the United States who became motivated to engage in direct action for civil rights. Perhaps most significantly, Freedom Riders impressed blacks living in rural areas throughout the South who later formed the backbone of the civil rights movement. This credibility inspired many subsequent civil rights campaigns, including voter registration, freedom schools, and the black power movement.
During their journey, the original group of 13 grew to as many as 1,000, but the ride ended on May 25, 1961 in Jackson, Mississippi, where they were met by an angry mob of white segregationists.
During the summer of 1961, Freedom Riders also campaigned against other forms of racial discrimination. They sat together in segregated restaurants, lunch counters and hotels. This was especially effective when it concerned large companies who, fearing boycotts in the North, began to desegregate their businesses.
United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to draft regulations to end racial segregation in bus terminals. The ICC was reluctant, but in September of 1961 it issued the necessary orders and the new policies went into effect on November 1, 1961.
