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The 1961 Freedom Rides were a series of nonviolent protests by Black and white activists challenging segregation in interstate bus terminals across the American South, facing brutal violence and imprisonment but ultimately sparking national attention and contributing to desegregation.
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[Music] hurry
hurry [Music]
it's reading love use the Supreme Court
had said listen here mister Jim always
time you [Music]
I'm taking a ride on the brain buster
I'm riding for bronzy to Jackson yeah
[Music]
on May 4 1961 Turkish Negroes and whites
bought tickets in Washington DC for a
long ride on to regularly scheduled
buses through the dissolve
I'm James former national director of
the Congress of racial equality more
often known as core among us were Albert Bigelow
Bigelow
Genevieve Hughes and Jim Peck we were
called a variety of things we were the
Freedom Riders and this is how the
Freedom Rides began in December 1960 the
Supreme Court said segregation in bus
terminals is unconstitutional but Jim
Crow still sat at lunch counters and in
waiting rooms throughout the south and
where he sat there was no room for
Negroes and whites to sitting our ride
supposed to be only 13 days long was
designed to push Jim Crow laws purge
Alabama's governor Patterson believed we
had a different purse what these people
are doing is not just traveling through
Alabama in interstate commerce or
interstate travel they're buying tickets
from town to town and getting off in
each town and seeking through mixed
groups [ __ ] Negro men and white women
to force themselves into situations
which tend to inflame the local people
and insert some oh by going into two
waiting rooms restaurants of cafes lunch
counters which are traditionally and in
many cases required by city ordinance to
be segregated and pushing themselves
onto people who are citizens of those
communities in such a manner as to as to
insist them
enraged them and to provoke them into
acts of violence that's what they are
doing despite what the governor said
there was no violence in Virginia or
North Carolina I had to leave the ride
to be with my family when I learned that
my father had died
Albert Bigelow was one who continued the
first violence occurred in Rock Hill
South Carolina John Lewis walk toward
the segregated white waiting room in the
terminal some white men slugged him and
then slugged me both of us practiced a
nonviolent attitude Sunday morning
Mother's Day when we left Atlanta I gave
each of the riders a box of animal
crackers and raisins because we didn't
expect to be served at our lunch stop
Aniston when we rolled into the terminal
in Anniston mobs of men were waiting for us
mmm some of them yelled Heil Hitler
the driver got off but we stayed onboard
we seem to be there for a long time when
the bus finally pulled out of the
terminal the mob followed us a tire went
flat and the bus stopped on a small
clump of the hill the mob went to work
on the bus sides windows and tires
finally one of them cut out a rear side
window and to a bomb through it they
held the door tightly shut until a state
policeman fired a shot some of the
riders came out of the door
unbe I'll be your slave I'll be buried
in my grave and go home the burning bus
was neither defeat nor victory for us
but it did bring the entire country to
the edge of its seat Freedom Riders on
the second bus the Trailways bus learned
Charles person and I were to test the
Trailways lunchroom in Birmingham as we
got off the bus we saw a crowd of men
some of them armed with pipe waiting
along the sidewalk just as we got to the
lunchroom a group of them seized us and
steered us toward the exit as soon as
they got us out of sight of the crowd in
a waiting room six of them started
hitting and slugging me I was soon
unconscious when I came to I was
bleeding badly you can't see me in this
picture neither did I know what was
happening to Charles but when I saw the
photo later I was amazed at how you
could see the expression of hate on the
faces of these men while they were
beating me I was taken to the hospital
where they had to put 53 stitches in my head
someone asked the police chief why not a
single policeman was on hand when our
bus arrived in Birmingham he explained
that it was Mother's Day and that they
were all visiting their mothers
Birmingham was the end of the bus ride
for this first group of Freedom Riders
drivers of Trailways and Greyhound buses
refused to take them beyond Birmingham
they were scheduled to appear at a rally
in New Orleans so they rode airplanes to
get to the rally on time but the Freedom
Ride wasn't finished it had a few of its
own now Negro and white students came
from Nashville soldiers volunteering in
freedom's frontline to carry on the ride
this was a chance to challenge
segregation the ride had become a symbol
of the fight against segregation not
only in southern bus terminals but
everywhere others said we should wait
for the time to get right for things to
cool off but we believe the time is
always right to fight evil and things
had grown so cold hearts had frozen the
United States Attorney General Robert
Kennedy tried to telephone Alabama
Governor Paterson for assurance the
students would be protected from Mars
but someone in the governor's office
said he was unavailable to the Attorney
General then President Kennedy tried to
call the governor and he was told he was
out on the Gulf of Mexico and could not
be reached other Freedom Riders some
from the first ride joined the students [Music]
[Music]
and they rode two buses Birmingham
and turned them over to state troopers
who convoyed them to the edge of Montgomery
Montgomery [Music]
[Music] Oh
[Music]
there was violence in Montgomery as soon
as the riders got off the bus
these men are reporting photographers
for Life magazine were among the first
to be attacked by a crowd of white men
and women who went after the newsman
the student who got the worst beating
was James's word he came at me
phrase very quickly grabbed me pulled me
over Shore trading under the pavement
tried to protect myself I was over able
to roll over in my stomach
tried to crouch out up and then somebody
kicked me ran to fanny
send me fine I rolled over on my stomach
and so the foot came down and got me
across here so last thing I remember
till I woke up in a taxi will take
shitty will take being or willing to
accept death we're going to keep coming
until we can ride from anywhere in the
south anyplace else myself without
anybody making any comments just as
American citizens the First Baptist
Church a rally for Freedom Riders by now
the whole country even the whole world
was involved in the agony of segregation
we dared begin to hope that the
nonviolent struggle against it will succeed
outside a mob gathered [Music]
inside fifteen hundred persons prayed
governor paterson could no longer ignore
what was happening he declared martial
law and the church rally became the
focal point for the conflict between
what is best and what is worst in men in
the church we sang prayed and listened
to the Reverend Martin Luther King he
told us it may mean going to jail if
such is the case the resistor must be
willing to fill the jail houses of the
South it may even mean physical death
but if physical death is the price that
a man must pay to free his children and
his white brethren from a permanent
death of the Spirit then nothing could
be more redemptive there was no defeat
in our mood that night May 24th and the
ride continued to New Orleans by way of
Jackson Mississippi I was one of the
riders some of us had grown up in this
section of the country
now we were being convoyed across it
like warriors being given safe passage
we couldn't somehow put down the feeling
that a war was going on of course many
of us had known that feeling before and
we knew that this was not a war against
segregation only in the south the
Freedom Rides were a way of
demonstrating against segregation
everywhere from South Africa to Seattle
from Boston to Berkeley segregation
kills men's spirits just as effectively
Anna Lauren slum ghetto as a dozen
southern segregated Terminal lunchroom
Alabama was in a hurry to be rid of us
so there were no stops during which we
could get out Mississippi the uniforms
have the words US Army sewn on their
breasts some of the state troopers
carried submachine guns stomachs
tightened now I heard a National
Guardsmen shell look behind every tree
consciously we inhaled and exhaled
deeply we tried to sing America the Beautiful
Beautiful
but our voices had no energy for the
last half hour the bus was a tomb
outside we could hear police car sirens
on the brain home bustle I'm I'm riding
the front seat two chapters
hello Jorma traveling I'll be fine
some of us thought moms would be waiting
for us but there were only police we got
walked into the terminal into the white
waiting rooms and felt Jim Crow clappa
hand on our shoulders his name is
Captain Ray and he has become a legend
among Freedom Riders three times he
asked us to move on three times we
refused and now this pattern is a ritual
it may mean going to jail if such is the
case the resistor must be willing to
fill the jail houses of the south we
didn't choose Jackson Mississippi has
the last stop on the freedom ride it
chose us we chose to fill its jails they
charged us with refusing to disperse and
move on after being ordered to do so by
a policeman and they accused us of
breach of the peace these laws had been
passed the year before to guard Jim Crow
against city and demonstrations justice
in Mississippi is run with assembly line
efficiency arrest trial fine
for months and $200 and when we refused
to pay back to jail and from Hinds
County Jail to Parchman state prison
most of us stayed in jail 40 days and 40
nights if we had stayed longer we would
be legally unable to appeal our
sentences and all of us of course wanted
to appeal against the evil that
Mississippi calls justice others appeal
to magazines newspapers radio and
television networks joined us in
one writer who protested against Jim
Crow was the Dean of Yale University's
law school he wrote the changes required
to make the Negro the white man's equal
before the law must come they are coming
not because political forces in the
north demand them nor yet to please
public opinion in Africa and Asia and
the score a point in the Cold War we are
struggling to accomplish these social
but we were put in the South 15 by 20
then I decided to switch and I described
what was on the bars of one of our
windows and we put all the toilet
article up there and we had something
like 22 bars do nothing for two hours
time girls exercise in this hour and
then afterwards we have that three hours
with two hours that I told you what we
had meetings to bathe to learning grief
because a Greek professor was there from
Mount Holyoke College we had strong get
it and I look down the cellblock and you
really look like an animal in a cage and
the day that I left I ran all the way
down the cellblock to say goodbye to
people and I almost got stuck in there
as a result of it the 1961 Freedom Rides
were an expedition into America's conscience
conscience
they didn't begin and end with the first
group of rides which we've described
hundreds of other Freedom Riders came
from all over the country to challenge
segregation the ride was only a
beginning but it was a breakthrough
terminals in Atlanta Charlotte Terra
and many other southern cities are now
desegregated perhaps more important some
white southerners are now beginning to
free their own trapped spirits will take
shady will take being we're willing to
accept death but we're going to keep
coming until we can ride from anywhere
in itself anyplace else myself without
anybody making any comments just as
one man's hands can't break a prison down
down
let me make a million will see light
they come round we'll see that day come
one man strength can't break the color more
more [Music]
we make our million will see the
one man's hands can't break a prison [Music]
[Music]
- and misbehave of me
we'll see that they come around will be [Music]
[Music] you
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