"The Freedom Riders were remarkable, fearless Americans. They were extraordinary, ordinary people . . . young people who took the reins of history and wouldn't let go.” -Mark Samels, American Experience Executive Producer. This documentary showed a very dark time of American history, but in the dark is where the heroes come along. The people who took a stand and took part in the Freedom Rider is truly brave, and fearless, they are the people who made the America. Originally the Freedom Riders started with 13 African-American and white civil rights activists, who were recruited by the Congress of Racial Equality, departed from Washington, D.C., and attempted to integrate facilities at bus terminals along the way into the Deep South. …show more content…
I knew about the movement in my American History class but this help opens up my eye and have a better knowledge about the whole movement and lead to a more personal narrative with all the people who actually involved in this movement. It is hard to wrap my head around the fact that riding the bus can get one hurt and killed and how non-volient acts can lead to so much hate and violence. The Freedom Rides help bring attention to national level. The level of violence is extreme in response to a non-violent movement. The white supremacy was trying its best to make the colored population inferior. The segregation is a symbol of fear and hate. The press and television is a big part in the success of the movement. They help shape the public opinion toward segregation. The media brought the problem to our attention through dramatic and often disturbing photos and reports. While accounts of the Freedom Rides in the white Southern press remained sharply negative and mocking, national media coverage became more favorable in the days that followed. Jim Peck gave an interview on NBC's Today Show. The June 2, 1961, issue of Time magazine featured the Freedom Rides as its cover story and was openly sympathetic in its coverage. Life magazine also chose the Freedom Riders as its "story of the week" for the June 2 issue, including powerful images from the siege of the First Baptist Church. (The Power of the Press) As the end, the Freedom Riders was a success. Mississippi and a
13 Freedom Riders were divided into two groups and left for Birmingham, Alabama on May 1, 1961. The two buses, a Grey hound and a Trailways bus, departed from Washington, D.C. 7 black and 6 white men and women were led by CORE director, James Farmer. The riders plan was to have at least 1 interracial pair sitting beside one another and at least 1 single black person sitting in the front of the bus which was reserved for whites only. The remainders of the group would sit where there was room. Only one of the Freedom Riders in the group would obey the South’s segregation laws.
Freedom riders challenged the facilities they encountered at bus terminals in the south which had been deemed illegal by the supreme court doing that those were dangerous the things that happened were beatings and arrests for the many people who were in it even Lewis suffered through it.
Stanley Nelson chronicles the journey of a group of individuals, known as the Freedom Riders, whom fought for the rights of African Americans to have the same amenities and access as the Caucasians. The purpose of the Freedom Rides was to deliberately violate the Jim Crow laws of the south that prohibited blacks and whites from mixing together on buses and trains. Expectedly, many of the Freedom Riders were beaten and the majority was imprisoned. This carried on for the majority of 1961 and culminated with the Interstate Commerce Commission issuing an order to end the segregation in bus and rail stations. Nelson encapsulates this entire movement in about two hours. At the end of the two hours, the viewer is emotionally tied to the
The Freedom rides were put together by Mr. Farmer and consisted of a mixed race of people. They all followed the rule: “Jail no bail.” This ride was non-violent and resulted in turmoil near the south. This smart idea made James Farmer a powerful leader in the Civil Rights movement. No one had the same amount of courage and fight inside as he did.
In 1961 James Farmer knew he had to get the attention of the press but he didn’t know how. Then he had the idea of The Freedom Riders (TFR) and what these people would do is get about a hundred of them and get on a bus but they would take up all the seats and not get off so no one could get on. They were never violent about anything they did. Some people had the idea for the bus waiting room too. Black people would crowd up the white waiting room so the white people had to go into the color waiting room all the while all of the TFR were nonviolent. This worked until disaster striked TFR were doing the usual crowding up a bus and I guess some people got fed up with in because the bus stopped and then burst into flames. In the after math there was reports of a old man Walter Bergman that was in a wheel chair was beaten half to
McWhorter, Diane. “The Enduring Courage of the Freedom Riders.” JSTOR.org, Version 1, Number 61, The JBHE Foundation Inc, 2008, Bartonsville, Pennsylvania. March, 2017 The article, The Enduring courage of the Freedom riders, By: Diane McWhorter, talks about the strategies used to gain equal rights for African Americans in the South.
On May 4, 1961, the first Freedom Ride consisting of a group of seven African Americans and six whites left Washington, D.C. They had planned to arrive in New Orleans, Louisiana on May 17, to pay tribute to the seventh anniversary of the court case Brown vs. Board of Education which ruled that segregation in
The Freedom Rides was a campaign, lead by Aboriginal student Charles Perkins, that highlighted and brought international attention to the racism, poor state of Aboriginal health, education and housing in western and coastal New South Wales towns. The campaign consisted of a group formed at the University of Sydney called the Student Action for Aborigines (SAFA), who travelled around NSW towns protesting the rights for Aboriginal people, aiming to decrease the socially discriminatory barriers existing between the Aboriginal and ‘white’ community. They were witness to violence and serious discrimination as they protested and picketed at community segregation areas such as pools, parks and pub. By the conclusion of the campaign, Charles Perkins
In Freedom’s Main Line, Derek Catsam argues that the most important battle for civl rights was segregated transportation. The first piece of evidence Catsam provides for this statement is that segregated transportation sparked the beginning of the freedom riders. The Freedom Riders were a group of civil rights activists who would ride interstate buses into the segregated southern United States beginning in 1961. Their reason for beginning this act was to challenge the lack of enforcement of the United States Supreme Court’s decision that segregated buses were unconstitutional.
On May 20th, the Nashville riders went back to Birmingham where there were no incidents. Then, all of the Freedom Riders traveled to Montgomery where a mob of men, women, and children carrying baseball bats, tire irons, and bricks met them at the bus terminal. The angry mob swarmed the riders and they were walking off the bus and beat the passengers. They attacked SNCC activists John Lewis and Jim Zwerg, who were both severely injured in this act of violence.
Blacks have long endured the brutality of criticism because of their skin color. The Freedom Riders took on abuse and a burning bus to test the Court’s ruling, equal transportation for Blacks and Whites. Non-violent sit-ins were another step towards getting Blacks equal rights. Four African American college students walked up to a
Some of the members that were in Nashville that had been following their progress had gotten really upset that the group just gave up. So because of this a new group of the Freedom Riders that was in Nashville left and went out to continue the journey of the others. Again they had gotten attacked by a mob in Montgomery.
The Freedom Riders used another tactic of nonviolent protests. The Freedom Riders on their bus just sat there and they counted on the racists to provoke a reaction. CORE Director James Famer said: “We felt we could count on the racists of the south to create a crisis so that the federal government would be so compelled to enforce the law.” The Riders began facing little resistance. “You didn't know what you were going to encounter. You
“Freedom Riders” were a group of people, both black and white, who were civil rights activists from the North who “meant to demonstrate that segregated travel on interstate buses, even though banned by an I.C.C. Ruling, were still being enforced throughout much of the South” (The South 16). The Riders attempted to prove this by having a dozen or so white and black Freedom Riders board buses in the North and travel through Southern cities. This was all “a coldly calculated attempt to speed up integration by goading the South, forcing the Southern extremists to explode their tempers” ('Freedom Riders' 20). The author of the Newsweek article stated this as the Southern opinion of the reason for the Freedom Riders. The
From textbooks and documentaries to music and television we have always recognized the black freedom struggle as a historic event in American history. However, this tale is more than just “American.” African American history is part of a global story. The black freedom struggle was part of a global fight for liberation. Minorities around the world united against oppression.