Freedom Riders Research Paper

This essay briefly discusses the similarities and differences of the ‘Australian and American Freedom Rides’ history. Throughout the essay, there is a discussion on what the reasons were for the protest of the Freedom Rides. It also points out the duration of the protest and the major locations where they were held. The essay also shows the different reactions to the protest and the influential behaviour it results in.

Being nonviolent was an effective strategy because they didn’t have that mentality and that is why they were being aggressive and ignorant as well as they wouldn’t get justice if the black folks use violence to gain justice.

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 exposed the many ways of Southern resistance by the numerous acts of violence committed towards them. Violence was experienced not from civilians, police officers and a mass of Ku Klux Klan members (KKK). The Freedom riders faced bus bombings, being beaten, and near lynching. The Freedom Riders decided to unmask what was happening in the south to showcase the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia in 1946 and Boynton v. Virginia in 1960, which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional.The Southern states had ignored the rulings and the federal government did nothing to enforce them. "The Riders' dangerous passage through the bus terminals and jails of the Jim Crow South represented only one part of an extended journey for justice that stretched back to the dawn of American history and beyond" (Arsenault 10). The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) sponsored most of the Freedom Rides, but some were also organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). The Freedom Rides consisted of dramatic sit-ins against segregated lunch counters, conducted by students and youth throughout the South, and boycotts of retail establishments that maintained segregated facilities, beginning in 1960.The Supreme Court's decision in Boynton supported the right of interstate travelers to disregard local segregation ordinances. Southern local and state police considered the actions of the Freedom Riders to be

In 1965 a group of students from Sydney University formed a group, called Student Action for Aborigines, that’s purpose was to draw attention to the inequality between white and indigenous Australia based in New South Wales. It also hoped to decrease the social discrimination between white Australia and indigenous Australia as well as give support to aboriginals to withstand the discrimination they face daily.

The civil rights activists were looking for equality, and were hoping that this case would finally bring that upon them. They were hoping to put an end to segregation.

The NSW freedom rides occurred in 1965 from the 12th of February to the 26th February starting in Sydney, travelling through inland NSW and finishing in Sydney. The Freedom Rides were lead by Kumantjayi (Charles) Perkins who was a member of the SAFA (Student Action for Aborigines) club in the University of Sydney. The activists were concerned with the: Aboriginal living and health issues; aboriginal people being made to live on reserves out of town; local authorities denying Aboriginal people to facilities (hotels, club, swimming pools, service in shops, and equal treatment in cinemas); the ways in which rural communities discriminated against Aboriginal people. The Activists impacted upon the opinions of individual people, the public and of the government by raising public awareness, recognising Charles Perkins as a national figure and by providing support for the 1967 Referendum.

Did their actions set a precedent for protest in the United States? Defend your answer.

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 Riders were groups of different riders of different ethnicities, religions, and backgrounds that rode the Greyhound and Trailways busses to fight against segregation. The freedom rides was an important part of the civil rights movement that helped lead to the success of the movement. The Freedom Riders of 1961, who faced constant racism and prejudice, were extremely important to the success of the civil rights movement by causing the federal government to uphold the laws already in place and integrate interstate travel.

The Freedom Riders made a series of bus trips in the summer of 1961 to set out and force legal gratification of the decision that declared segregation in railways and bus terminal accommodations illegal. (Burg) The emotional and physical strive and risks the Riders made to continue the ride, to ameliorate segregation. (Burg, Benson) The Riders were not blessings or heroes, but just common people who saw through the racism and resentment towards African Americans and chose to respond to the problem, risking their own lives, to make the nation a more adequate place for African Americans even though an abounding amount of problems faced them.

They struggled for equality and took part in some of the greatest civil rights movements ever known. Although the civil rights revolution came as a surprise, the causes fought for were necessary. According to Foner, “the United States in the 1950s was still a segregated, unequal society with half of the nation’s black families living in poverty.” (902) Many whites paid little attention to segregation because they felt it had no impact on their everyday lives. Segregation impacted blacks, especially in the South, on a daily basis. They had separate restrooms, drinking fountains, schools, entrances to public places, and were unable to enter many public institutions altogether. (902) The arrest of Rosa Parks sparked a year-long bus boycott and marked the beginning of the civil rights movement in the South. (904) With Martin Luther King Jr. leading the movement, the freedom of justice and equality finally seemed within reach. According to the text, “King was a master of appealing to the deep sense of injustice among blacks and to the conscience of white America. He presented the case for black rights in a vocabulary that emerged the black experience with that of the nation.” (906)

Segregation was a big thing in 1961.It became such a big deal that many children and adults chose to go to jail just to make people see that segregation was a horrible thing to do. Africans Americans and Caucasians were separated by there skin color. But that all changed when the Freedom riders spoke out about segregation. The freedom riders changed society by changing the way people feel about African Americans in today’s society.

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.

The movie Freedom Riders was important to the civil rights movement, which occurred in the 1990s during time this movie took place. The aim of freedom rides “was to call attention to blatant violations of recent Supreme Court ruling against segregation in interstate commerce” (Henretta, Hinderaker, Edwards, Self). The civil rights movement was a fight for equality and police mortality. Freedom Writers takes place in the 1900s during the Watt’s Riot (LA civil rights movement). Blacks were fighting for equality and to be treated as equally as whites; they wanted less police brutality and they rioted for what they believed in.