Remembering the Freedom Rides 50 years later
by Larry Bleiberg, articles.latimes.com
April 24th 2011
As the bus leaves Atlanta, Dennis Climpson is eager for conversation. He wants
to talk about college football this Sunday morning, but I have a question for
him. "Have you ever heard of the Freedom Rides?" I ask.
Fifty years ago next month, a group of 15 passengers travels the same route.
Like us, they were blacks and whites sitting together on buses, then a
violation of segregation laws. Climpson, 48, says he hasn't heard of the
protests, but he's intrigued. As Interstate 20 passes by, he turns to his
smartphone to check Wikipedia.
In 1961, Charles Person was 18 and the youngest of the Freedom Riders, who were
traveling on two buses to New Orleans from Washington, D.C. The Georgia native
still remembers crossing into Alabama that Mother's Day. "There was tension. It
was kind of eerie."
Person expected to be harassed and roughed up as the group tested compliance
with federal integration laws, but he didn't imagine much worse. "This was
broad daylight," he says.
Later that day, members of the Ku Klux Klan would set fire to one bus and beat
riders on the other with pipes, chains and bats. Over the next week, the world
would watch as the Kennedy administration struggled to protect the protesters.
The racial violence shocked — and changed — America.
Today you can retrace the Freedom Rides easily by car or bus. The Alabama
cities on the route are marking the anniversary with murals, exhibits and a new
museum. It's a leisurely tour of the Deep South, where you'll find gracious
hosts, good food and stark reminders of a not-so-distant past.
Climpson, who is bound for Jackson, Miss., to start a new truck-driving job,
can't believe what he's reading on his phone.
"Anniston, Ala.?" he asks, pointing to the screen. "I thought that was a quiet
town."
Half a century ago, when the Greyhound bus carrying some of the Freedom Riders
pulled into Anniston, in the foothills of the Appalachians, a crowd awaited.
Klan members pummeled the vehicle and slashed its tires. It limped away 20
minutes later, and a convoy of cars followed. Six miles later, the bus stopped
with a flat.
Bernard Emerson still lives on a hill overlooking the spot, which now bears a
historic marker. Someone had tossed burning rags through a smashed bus window.
"The smoke was getting pretty thick," he recalls. "One lady was coming out of
the window. She got her foot caught, and she was kind of hanging there."
Original Page:
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/24/travel/la-tr-freedomriders-20110424
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