The Freedom Riders Essay

I want to pursue my graduate studies on history at Cal State Los Angeles. I gained an interest in history as a career. I’m going to become one of the children from my family to pursue this endeavor. I see history as important information which teaches to not repeat past errors for society in the 21st century. Furthermore I want to see what jobs I can do in my current condition, after being diagnosed for multiple schelrosis and asperger’s syndrome.

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.

During the Civil Rights Movement era; there were many prominent figures and parties that challenged the nation to change society's views on racism. No other group challenged the accepted standards as much as the Freedom Riders. The Freedom Riders' impact on political and social views influenced a drastic shift in the behaviors and thought of the Southern states.

Although there had been a ruling by the Interstate Commerce Commission that blacks could sit wherever they wanted on buses that traveled through more than one state and the Supreme Court had ruled that segregation on buses was unconstitutional, blacks continued to face difficulties when riding buses in the Deep South. There were signs in southern bus terminals indicating areas where blacks were to sit. Separate restrooms were to be used by whites and blacks. In order to test these rulings and draw attention to the Civil Rights Movement, a decision was made to conduct Freedom Rides. A group of whites and blacks would challenge these practices (Freedom Riders).

The Freedom Riders would ride on commercial buses with passengers of mixed races and would travel to the south to put an end to the segregation that African-Americans were facing. Freedom Riders (Who were they and what did they do) The Freedom riders were a group formed on May 4, 1961, composed of 13 African-American and white civil rights activists who were recruited by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Their aim was to abolish segregation in the South with a series of bus trips to protest segregation in interstate bus terminals.

In Eye On The Prize About Ain’t Scared of Your Jails, the students from colleges in Nashville set up sit-ins at local restaurants. These sit-ins consisted of black and African American Students would sit at counters or areas where whites had been told only they were allowed to sit. When many of these students were placed in jail, local black African American, and white supporters boycotted businesses downtown since they contributed to much of the cities income. Moreover, while the sit-ins were not violent, some violence occurred to prevent the few black residents who did try to go downtown from shopping, this fear of violence eventually spread to white citizens. The main techniques they used were nonviolent, and peaceful; they had been taught techniques to avoid engaging in violence and maintaining their place at the counter. These students wanted to keep their protests as being a student protest. Moreover, they also organized the freedom rides in order to get President Kennedy to enforce the two supreme court rulings that banned

I learned a lot form the long interesting video. This video is very helpful to understand Civil Rights and Freedom Rides. As I learned NAACP is “National Association for the advancement of colored people to abolish segregation and discrimination to oppose racism” and Freedom Rides is “civil rights campaign of the congress of racial equality in which protesters traveled by bus through the south to desegregate bus stations. White violence against them prompted the Kennedy administration to protect them and become more involved in civil rights.” Martin Luther King is a national and international leader that “I have a dream” is his famous phrase which his dream changed into reality. The nonviolence movement effect in the United States civil Rights

Many of them had been trained in classes on non-violence at Nashville's Highlander Folk School, which was said to be "somewhat of a Parris Island for non-violent protesters." This kind of intensive training, comparable to a marine boot camp, shows just how committed to non-violence the protestors were. SCLC leader James Lawson worded it perfectly when he said at the Shaw conference: "We affirm the philosophical ideal of non-violence as a foundation of our purpose and the manner of our action." This commitment to non-violence truly paid off in the long run. "The Freedom Rides brought much needed national attention to the southern movement" and they managed to stir the nation's conscience. “The violence which characterized much of the initial Southern reaction to the Freedom Rides was so serious that the Federal government intervened” , and all of this was caught on camera for the world to see. The footage and still pictures portrayed well-dressed, well-groomed, and calm young men and women being savagely beaten by white supremacists. These images were incredibly powerful and played a major role in swaying public opinion to the side of the civil rights activists. In addition to the images of the violence, interviews of Freedom Riders in

The article Freedom Rides looks into the Freedom Riders, and how their protest impacted America. This article gives the readers a look at how the Freedom Riders made their statement through a huge non-violent protest that ended in violence, not by them, but by others. This article shows the readers what the people on the buses did to make the statement that they were equal to any other man, but also shows the astonishing thing that happened to them.

One specific example of how peaceful resistance had a positive influence on society was on May 4, 1961. This is the time where the Freedom Rides occurred which are series of bus trips that traveled through the American South to protest against segregation in the interstate bus terminals. The people who took these trips were known as the Freedom Riders. Their plan was to go to New Orleans, Louisiana, to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, which ruled that segregation of the nation’s public schools were unconstitutional. The main goal was to test a 1960 decision by the Supreme Court in Boynton v. Virginia that segregation of interstate transportation facilities, including bus terminals, was unconstitutional as well.

Freedom riders fought for racial equality among African Americans in America in the 1960’s. Their purpose was to first stop segregation of transportation, and then later expand to racial equality everywhere. They were inspired by Rosa parks actions and advised by Martin Luther King Jr. The freedom riders protests lasted 7 months with about 400 members participating in them. Riders were supported by the Congress for Racial Inequality or CORE. Throughout history the southern states has been a place of slavery and after it has been abolished, the south finds a hard time integrating African Americans into daily lives. As a result of this behavior, the races are segregated. In the south the freedom riders faced many oppositions by legal forces to stop their protests.

“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

It involved Civil rights Activists who rode interstate buses into segregated southern states. They would come to be known as Freedom Riders. One such Freedom Rider was James Zwerg. On May 20th, a group of Freedom Riders leaves Birmingham, Alabama heading toward Montgomery. Abandoned by their promised police escort, the riders arrive at Montgomery and are met by a mob of Ku Klux Klansmen. As soon as Zwerg is the first to step off the Greyhound bus, he is savagely beaten until unconscious. During this same incident another daring White man, Justice Department official John Seigenthaler, is also knocked unconscious, this time by a lead pipe, trying to save two African-American women from the mob. Days later, awoken in the hospital with a bruised face and a broken body unable to move; Zwerg is quoted at this time saying "Segregation must be stopped. It must be broken down. Those of us on the Freedom Ride will continue.... We're dedicated to this, we'll take hitting, we'll take beating. We're willing to accept death. But we're going to keep coming until we can ride from anywhere in the South to any place else in the South without anybody making any comments, just as American citizens." Zwerg was willing to lay down his life for the improvement of the lives of African Americans. These two men are not alone. They are joined by thousands of other Whites for the equal treatment of all

He organized many demonstrations that most people don’t know about. In 1946, the Supreme Court ruled that interstate buses and trains were to be integrated, but the South refused to do so. One year later, in response, Rustin  and the secretary of CORE, George Houser organized the first freedom rides called “Journey of Reconciliation” (Hill). The buses were headed to North Carolina from Washington DC with “eight African American and eight White members of CORE” (Hill). Although this was a good strategy to get the South to acknowledge the new integration laws, it ultimately ended with some consequences. Between 1947 and 1949, six of the riders were arrested, including Bayard, and were sentenced to segregated chain gangs (Hill). The progress of the Journey of Reconciliation didn’t go unnoticed by the public and made a very influential impact in society during that time. His demonstration influenced Rosa Parks’s bus protest in 1955 and the freedom rides between 1960 and 1961 (Hill). The Journey of Reconciliation created a domino effect leading up the civil rights

We are the freedom riders you can not knock us down. We will stand against segregation and stand for what is right. No matter how many times you tried to kill us or hurt us or knock us down we will get right back up and fight again. We are going to change history! We should be able to sit where we would like and not be told to move.the plans for this group is we are going to ride buses across the south and protest segregation of seating.