'Freedom Riders,' a story of brave, ordinary folks
Posted: Sunday, Jan. 30, 2011
JACKSON, Miss. Filmmaker Stanley Nelson says his new documentary about
the activists who defiantly opposed the 1960s segregation of the South
may help inspire a new generation.
"Freedom Riders" recounts the 1961 crusade by activists intent on ending
segregated travel on interstate buses in the South. The "American
Experience" film, to air May 16 on PBS, has been generating buzz on the
film festival circuit since its showing this month at Sundance.
Most of the riders were college students coached in the art of
nonviolent protest by veteran activists, including the Rev. James
Lawson. The students, both black and white, knew they were risking their
lives by traveling on Greyhound and Trailways buses.
Nelson said the lesson of "Freedom Riders" is how ordinary citizens can
bring about change.
"It really says that this movement was a movement of people," Nelson
said. "Nobody else will ever be a Martin Luther King. What 'Freedom
Riders' said is that you don't have to be."
That's the message Nelson wants to impart to students being recruited to
join original participants in retracing the route of the Freedom Rides
next year on their 50th anniversary. Forty seats are available for the
trip, organized by "American Experience."
The tour will begin in Washington and cover flash points of the civil
rights era, including Anniston, Ala., where a bus was bombed, and
Montgomery, Ala., where riders were beaten by a white mob.
History told in stories
One of the original riders, Hank Thomas of Stone Mountain, Ga., recalled
the dangers.
"I was on that bus that was firebombed in Anniston, and the Klan held
the door shut while the bus was burning. The fuel tank exploded and the
people who were holding the door scattered," Thomas said.
When the bus reached Rock Hill, Thomas was arrested, taken to jail and
then to a Ku Klux Klan meeting. He was able to escape.
The bus tour is to culminate in Jackson, Miss., the city where riders
were detained and hauled to Parchman prison, where at least one of the
riders was struck so hard by guards that he bled.
Nelson said his latest project resonates even more than some of his
previous documentaries, including "The Murder of Emmett Till." The 2003
documentary is an account of the 14-year-old black youth's murder in
Mississippi in 1955.
The new generation of riders will hear from the movement's veterans,
including Bernard Lafayette, who was a 20-year-old seminary student when
he got involved. Lafayette said his parents initially refused to sign a
consent form, fearing for his life.
Lafayette, distinguished senior scholar-in-residence at Emory University
who teaches students about Martin Luther King Jr.'s philosophy, said the
strategies of the civil rights movement are applicable to such issues
today as "the bullying, the high dropout rate, the violence that takes
place."
"Once students realize what existed before and what we did to bring
about those changes, that becomes the teachable moment. The worst thing
that could happen is that people come to believe that things cannot
change," Lafayette said.
Many voices heard
The documentary includes footage of the buses under attack, as well as
interviews with participants and government officials who sought to
quell the situation for the Kennedy administration.
John Seigenthaler, a Tennessee native who was a special assistant to
Attorney General Robert Kennedy, said on film he wasn't aware of the
plight of blacks on segregated buses before the rides.
Diane Nash, of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, told him
the riders had signed their wills because "'We know someone will be
killed. But we cannot let violence overcome nonviolence.'"
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http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/01/30/2015341/freedom-riders-a-story-of
-brave.html
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