[2 articles]
UMW to celebrate 50th anniversary of Freedom Rides
http://blogs.fredericksburg.com/chalkboard/2011/01/25/umw-to-celebrate-50th-anniversary-of-freedom-rides/
January 25th, 2011
The Univeristy of Mary Washington released the following press release today:
The University of Mary Washington will launch a semester-long
celebration of civil rights pioneer James Farmer and the 50th
anniversary of the Freedom Rides, Monday, Feb. 7, with a special
kickoff event followed by a Freedom Rides scholar's remarks.
The three-month tribute will feature appearances by
Freedom Riders and academic scholars of race, civil rights and
student activism. The March 30 limited-release showing of the
critically acclaimed PBS documentary "Freedom Riders" will be among
the highlights. The celebration will culminate May 7-8 with events
that include a commencement address by U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.),
a Freedom Rider and civil rights leader.
The 1961 Freedom Rides challenged the segregation of bus
transportation throughout the Deep South. Freedom Riders were beaten
and jailed, and their buses were attacked during the rides organized
by James L. Farmer Jr., then head of CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality.
Farmer taught the history of the civil rights movement
to Mary Washington students for about a dozen years before his
retirement in 1998. That year, President Bill Clinton awarded Farmer
the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2010, the university teamed
with Rep. Lewis, who rode with Farmer on the Freedom Rides, to
campaign for a U.S. postage stamp honoring the late Farmer.
UMW President Rick Hurley encourages the public to get
involved in the university's celebration of Farmer and the rides by
participating in the scheduled activities. "I invite the entire UMW
community to come together to pay tribute to the legacy of the
Freedom Riders, to recognize the role of our beloved professor as one
of our greatest civil rights champions, and to reflect on the lessons
that they have for us today," Hurley said.
The public is invited to the following events in a
schedule that begins during Black History Month:
Freedom Riders celebration kickoff at noon Monday, Feb. 7, on Ball
Circle and Campus Walk. Author Eric Etheridge will speak at the
kickoff and he will be accompanied by two former Freedom Riders, the
Rev. Reginald Green and Joan Trumpauer Mulholland.
Lecture by Eric Etheridge, author of Breach of Peace: Portraits of
the 1961 Freedom Riders, at 7 p.m. Feb. 7, in the Great Hall, Woodard
Campus Center. A journalist and photographer, Etheridge recently
interviewed and photographed many of the original Freedom Riders for the book.
An address, "Lessons of the Civil Rights Generation for Today's
Students," by Andy Lewis, author of The Shadows of Youth: The
Remarkable Journey of the Civil Rights Generation, from 3 to 5 p.m.,
Wednesday, March 30, in Lee Hall, room 411.
Limited-release showing of the film "Freedom Riders" at 7 p.m.
Wednesday, March 30, in Dodd Auditorium, George Washington Hall. PBS
and UMW have collaborated on this special showing of the widely
hailed documentary directed by Stanley Nelson. PBS will broadcast the
film in May on "American Experience."
Freedom Riders panel discussion and Great Lives lecture at 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, March 31, in Dodd Auditorium, featuring a talk by Raymond
Arsenault, author of Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial
Justice, followed by a discussion with a panel of Freedom Riders.
UMW commencement address by Rep. Lewis, part of the ceremony at 9
a.m., Saturday, May 7 on Ball Circle. Lewis, a civil rights colleague
of James Farmer and organizer of sit-ins to protest segregation,
co-founded and chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,
a leading organization for student activism.
Students aboard the PBS "American Experience" bus retracing the route
of the first Freedom Ride will stop Sunday, May 8 at UMW in
Fredericksburg, part of the original route, for a commemoration at
the James Farmer memorial on Campus Walk.
The public is encouraged to check periodically for event
updates at http://freedomrides.umw.edu. Learn about the university's
Farmer stamp campaign http://jamesfarmer.umw.edu.
The original 13 Freedom Riders, including Farmer,
boarded a bus in Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961. The racially mixed
group of men and women, ranging in age from 18 to 61, traveled
through Virginia and into the Deep South, where segregation was
decreed by local and state laws. The Freedom Riders risked their
lives as they faced police brutality, vigilantes and even bombs.
Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent federal marshals to
Alabama to restore order after mob violence erupted, and at one
point, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. flew to Alabama to support the
riders. When news of the brutality against the first rides reached
the nation and the world, buses from all over the U.S. joined the
effort. In all, more than 400 Freedom Ridersè‹” majority of whom were
jailed in Jackson, Miss.è² raveled through the South to demand just
treatment of all interstate travelers.
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UWM exhibit honors Freedom Riders
http://www.jsonline.mobi/entertainment/114291279.html%3E?ua=android&dc=smart&c=y
Jan. 20, 2011
Mary-Liz Shaw
A national traveling exhibit that commemorates the 50th anniversary
of the Freedom Riders opens at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Monday. The exhibit is linked to a film about the Civil Rights era
anti-segregation group that will be broadcast on the PBS program
"American Experience" in May.
The free exhibit, which runs through Feb. 21, features archival
photographs and newspaper clippings that chronicle the turbulent
1960s fight for equal rights. The national display, created by the
Gildner Lehrman Institute of American History, will be augmented by
archival materials in the new digital collection, "March on
Milwaukee: Civil Rights History Project," at the UWM Libraries. The
Milwaukee materials will be on view through Feb. 27.
Both the national exhibit and the film by director Stanley Nelson
focus on a six-month period in 1961 when Freedom Riders sought to
dismantle laws that required segregation of interstate travelers in
the South. Black and white Riders rode together on buses throughout
the South, where integrated travel was prohibited.
UWM will have a panel discussion with the film's producer, Mark
Samels, after a free screening of "Freedom Riders" at the Union
Theater on Feb. 14.
The exhibit goes up for viewing Monday at the Golda Meir Library's
Daniel M. Soref Learning Commons, 2311 E. Hartford Ave. A formal
exhibit opening on Feb. 1 will include a discussion about civil
rights from 3 to 4:30 p.m., moderated by UWM history professor Robert
Smith. For more information about the exhibit, see
www4.uwm.edu/libraries/News/freedomriders.cfm.
.
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