50 Years Later, Students Retrace 1961 Freedom Ride
by The Associated Press, npr.org
May 8th 2011 12:21 AM
Charles Reed Jr. is skipping his college graduation ceremony to do something
much more significant to him: retracing the original 1961 Freedom Ride and
paying tribute to those who helped win the civil rights that his generation
enjoys.
Reed says missing Friday's graduation doesn't compare to the sacrifices the
original Freedom Riders made when they challenged the South's segregation laws:
quitting jobs, dropping out of college and, ultimately, risking their lives.
"What the Freedom Rides did 50 years ago paved the way for what I have today as
an African-American," said Reed, a 21-year-old business administration major at
the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg.
Reed is one of 40 college students chosen from nearly 1,000 applicants who will
join a handful of the original Freedom Riders on an eight-day journey from
Washington, D.C., through the South.
The students pulled up in their bus Friday night to greet more than a dozen
original Freedom Riders at the Newseum in Washington for the premiere of a new
PBS documentary on the rides based on a book by Raymond Arsenault. They sang
"Oh, Freedom" and other tunes together before viewing the film, which premieres
May 16 on public broadcast stations.
The documentary recounts the rides state by state and how they pushed President
John F. Kennedy to advocate for civil rights. As a young rider, U.S. Rep. John
Lewis of Georgia said he "felt like a soldier in a nonviolent army," though the
rides were more confrontational than Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil
rights leaders would have preferred.
Congress of Racial Equality head James Farmer, six other black people and six
white people participated in the first Freedom Ride, which left Washington,
D.C., on May 4, 1961. The trip was to test whether southern states were
implementing Boynton v. Virginia, a U.S. Supreme Court decision that barred
segregation in public-transportation facilities.
The trip carried riders through Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia. The group
faced violent attacks in the Deep South from white mobs who opposed
integration. One of the buses was firebombed in Anniston, Ala., and the riders
were beaten. A Ku Klux Klan mob attack in Birmingham, Ala., drew national
headlines and international embarrassment for the Kennedy administration. The
first rides ended with a federally escorted flight to New Orleans.
Lewis helped organize a subsequent ride that month that began in Nashville. But
Lewis and others were beaten at a bus terminal in Montgomery, Ala., and federal
marshals were called in after riders and supporters were surrounded by a mob at
the First Baptist Church. Riders were later arrested in Mississippi.
As news of the violence spread, hundreds joined the Freedom Rides. Hundreds
were jailed that summer in Jackson, Miss., and transferred to the infamous
Parchman state penitentiary after the local jail ran out of space. The
demonstrations became a defining point in U.S. civil rights history.
Lewis, who was knocked unconscious during the Montgomery attack and later
jailed in Mississippi, said it's important for students to learn that the
Freedom Riders were willing to die to confront the "whites only" and "colored
only" signs at transit stations to end segregation.
"We never gave in," Lewis said. "We kept the faith, and it's important for the
stories to be told over and over again so future generations and especially
these young people that are traveling will learn that in a matter of a short
time, we brought down those signs."
Diane Nash, who organized a wave of riders from Nashville, Tenn., said she got
involved because it was humiliating to be segregated and many in Nashville were
fed up.
"I think we should consider how long it would have taken to desegregate ... if
we had left it to public officials," she said.
The lesson from the Freedom Rides is to take the country's future into your own
hands, Nash said.
"My colleagues had you in mind," she told the student riders. "We had not met
you, but we loved you."
After events in Washington, the bus heads south on Sunday. Along the way
they'll stop in a number of cities, including those where the 1961 riders were
harassed, physically attacked and arrested. The students plan to use social
media to share their experiences during the trip, which will end May 16 in New
Orleans.
Freedom Rider Joan Trumpauer Mulholland plans to share her scrapbook from 1961
with student riders on the bus trip. The 69-year-old Arlington, Va., resident
says she wants to pass on her ideas to the college students because her
generation is "fading into a sunset, so to speak."
Mulholland joined one of the 60 demonstrations after a colleague was arrested
on the initial ride. She was arrested June 8, 1961, in Jackson, Miss., and
spent about two weeks in the local jail, then the rest of the summer at
Parchman.
Prison warden Fred Jones wrote a letter to Mulholland's mother, telling her
that she could send medicine to her daughter. He also made a point to criticize
her parenting skills.
"What I cannot understand is why as a mother you permitted a minor white girl
to gang up with a bunch of negro bucks and white hoodlums to ramble over this
country with the express purpose of violating the laws of certain states and
attempting to incite acts of violence," Jones wrote. The letter appears in
photojournalist Eric Etheridge's book "Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961
Freedom Riders."
Student rider Marshall Houston, a May graduate of the University of Alabama, is
building on what he learned when producing a documentary about the university's
Foster Auditorium. Alabama Gov. George Wallace made his "stand in the
schoolhouse door" at the building on June 11, 1963, in a symbolic attempt to
prevent integration as two black students tried to register for class.
Learning about the people — both black and white — who worked behind the scenes
to make sure the university's integration didn't turn violent drove home the
importance of being aware of history, said Houston, a white native of
Birmingham.
"Through that process, I really first began to understand what power strategic
actions and a coalition of students who believe in equality and justice can
have in society," said the 22-year-old Houston, who compared their efforts to
modern-day student activists in Iran and Egypt.
"It's inspiring when you see young people my age taking a stand," he said. "If
I were in that situation, would I take that stand? That's not something you can
answer until that moment comes."
Stops in his home state include events at the Anniston bus station, the
Montgomery church where a mob of whites trapped some of the first Freedom
Riders, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and hundreds of others.
Glenda Gaither Davis, a Freedom Rider who left college in 1961 to join the
protests, says the young people need to know about past struggles so they can
solve current and future problems.
"I don't know what it is in our society — we don't have a lot of regard for
their past," said the 68-year-old Davis, an Atlanta resident who plans to meet
the group when the bus arrives in her city. "They must have an appreciation of
history to become a part of the force that's moving ahead."
———
Associated Press Writer Brett Zongker in Washington contributed to this report.
———
Online:
Twitter: (at)pbsamex & (at)FreedomRidePBS / (hash)pbsbus
Facebook: (at)Freedom Riders, (at)American Experience
http://www.facebook.com/ride
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/2011
Original Page: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=136092849
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