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| "Freedom Rides" took place from May to November 161. |
Fifty years ago this month, a group of thirteen young men and women, members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) led by James Farmer, planned a deliberate but non-violent protest against segregation in the American south. This is the story of a few extraordinary, ordinary people who changed history, as told by the American Experience production of "Freedom Riders", a documentary of the pivotal six months in the history of the Civil Rights Movement, which aired on KET.
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May through November 1961, hundreds of Americans, both black and white, risked their lives to change the Jim Crowe laws in the segregated U.S. South. The majority of the Freedom Riders were black and white college students.
MLK led a reception in Atlanta. However, he did not participate in the rides, and even told riders that the Klan in the Deep South were planning “quite a welcome...If I were you," he warned, "I probably wouldn’t go into Alabma."
Despite his warnings, they went anyway.
Imagine this: A group gets off a greyhound bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Higway patrolman emerges from the smoke, fires his gun in the air and says, "Ok. You’ve had your fun. Time to move on.”
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| Freedom Riders flee a bus burned by an Alabama mob in 1961. |
After the reporters were forced away, that’s when the attack on the riders started.
Another rider, James Zwerg, said, “You could see baseball bats, pieces of pipe, and hammers and chains. One fellow had a pitchfork...I asked God to be with me, to give me the strength I would need to remain non-violent, and to forgive them.”
Fellow rider, Frederick Leonard's voice shook when he described the scene, "They were like a feeding frenzy. They were just crazy!”
“And what sticks with me," said rider Catherine Burke-Brookes, "was women were screaming, “Kill them n-----s” and they had babies in their arms.
“And what sticks with me," said rider Catherine Burke-Brookes, "was women were screaming, “Kill them n-----s” and they had babies in their arms.
There were no police anywhere to be seen. President John F. Kennedy was getting the report in real-time, explained journalist and author, Evan Thomas.
Justice Department Official during the Kennedy administration, John Seigenthaler added, "This was war, on the Greyhound Bus terminal parking lot. Absolute war." He re-called one of the last moments he remembered from that day, before he was attacked and left bleeding and unconscious in the street. He grabbed a young female rider by the arm, to try to get her out of harms way. But, she looked at him and shouted: “Mister, I don’t want you to get hurt! I’m non-violent. I’m trained to do this. Please don’t get hurt. We’ll be fine.”
Newspaper articles came out immediately, with headlines such as “U.S. Official is Knocked Un-conscious”. Former rider turned State Representative, John Lewis, explained “The last thing I recall, standing with John Zwerg, I was hit in the head with a wooden crate.”
Rider Sangernetta Gilbert Bush said “The police were standing there in their uniforms, just looking. They provided no protection for those students.”
Before the police broke up the crowd with tear gas, they beat up and injured at least twenty persons of both races and sexes.
Derek Casam, professor from the University of Texas explained, “After the Montgomery riots, the Kennedys felt betrayed. There’s John S lying in a pool of his own blood. They realized they were going to have to bring in Federal Marshalls.”
Writer Diane McWorter explained that Hoovert didn’t tell Kennedy the mob had formed. He made no effort to stop the mob.
The second bus didn’t know the mob had attacked, that the streets were covered in blood, as they were approaching the most dangerous part of their trip - Atlanta, Georgia - explained historian, Raymond Arsenault.
Freedom rider, Mae F. Maultrie Maurie explained, “It was a very disconverting period. It was as if one civilization was coming unhinged.”
One boy laid down in front of the bus, the mob surrounded. The bus driver was able to ease the bus out of the crowd, but a car followed close behind.
The tire was going flat. The bus driver got out, saw the tire, barely any air left, and he walked away.
Now in the hands of the mob, it didn’t look good for the the Freedom Riders. “I was pretty afraid, that’s putting it mildly," said a rider.
Someone from the croud broke out a window with a crowbar, and a smoke bomb was launched through the broken glass., causing the fuel tank to explode. The mob dispursed, the door burst open and people spilled into the yard, gasping for air, shouing “Water!”
"I can’t tell you if I walked off the bus, crawled off, or if someone pulled me off," said Maurie
People were coughing, strangling, and collapsing to the ground. Angry mobs some pulled out baseball bats and beat riders that had collapsed to the ground. “It was like a scene from hell," one rider said.
Rider John Lewis said, "I was happy, I was like a soldier in a non-violent army...there was no military, police protection...we just chartered a regular bus unprotected, just to see what happens."
"With our non-violent beliefs, and our good will, we could do anything," added rider Genevieve.
Halleleujah, I'm a Travelin', Freedom Singers
One of the songs that inspired Freedom Riders through their dargest days
I’m taking a trip on the Greyhound Bus
Hallelujah, ain’t it fine
Hallelejah, I'm a travelin'
Down freedom's main line.
'Freedom Riders' Reenactment, May 16, 2011:
50th Anniversary of an Event that Changed AmericaEarlier this month, forty current college students from around the country, picked from thousands of applicants, participated in a PBS-sponsored re-enactment of the Freedom Rides. They joined some of the original 1961 Riders to make the trip from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans.
It was an opportunity to reflect on the risks and sacrifices inherent in the fight for social change, whether fifty years ago or today.
Democratic Congressman, John Lewis, from Georgia, one of the thirteen original Freedom Riders. He was severely beaten in Montgomery, Alabama.
One of the student riders, Charles Reed from Jersey City, NJ a graduating senior from the university of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va.
Why is it important to remember the Rides a half-century later?
Give acknowledgement to such a historic event in American history, inter-racila, both male and female, getting on a bus saying we want to end segregation.
In 1961 a small group of black and white college students chartered two greyhound buses and hit the road, to try to change the Jim Crowe Laws that kept the south and beyond segregated.
They took “Freedom Rides” from Washington D.C. to the deep South, beginning a journey to challenge Jim Crowe’s segregated travel laws: divided buses, separate waiting rooms, and restrooms.
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| Signs such as "Colored Waiting Room" reminded travelers of the enforced racial order. |
But, violence came just ten days in.
In Aniston, Alabama, the KKK surrounded the bus and set it on fire. Thomas and five others were almost burned alive.
Hours later, in Birmingham, the second bus was not met with fire, but with pipes and bats.
“We must not surrender to violence,” was a thought that remained strong among the Freedom Riders, as non-violent resistance only served to empower them against their enemies.
Over the next seven months, more than 400 others joined the cause, and it paid off.
The Kennedy administration finally enforced federal law desegregating interstate buses and public accommodations, proving that 13 people on two buses could start a movement that would change their lives and the nation.
Almost 50 years later, Freedom Rider, Hank Thomas, met with the son of one of the Klan members that burned the bus.
“He asked me for forgiveness. Obviously there’s nothing to forgive," Thomas said. "I had mentally left Aniston a long time ago. I didn’t carry the baggage of bitterness with me...He asked me if he and I could break bread together."
When asked what he hoped to acomplish when he got on that bus, Thomas explained that he knew they would overcome segregation in the South. "That wasn’t just a song or melody, that was our philosophy. We knew we would be successful."
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