Local men who were Freedom Riders 50 years ago say the struggle isn't over
by CASSANDRA SPRATLINGDETROIT FREE, freep.com
May 17th 2011
Richard Gleason got on the bus June 2, 1961. He got on in Montgomery, Ala.
Raymond B. Randolph, Jr. got on the bus five days later, June 7. He got on
in Nashville.
Both were bound for Jackson, Miss.
They rode interstate buses that would take them on a journey into the pages
of American history books and change the direction of the nation.
They were among small groups of blacks and whites who dared to challenge
local segregation laws in the South by attempting to go into bus station
waiting rooms, restaurants and restrooms marked White or Colored when they
were not. And in some cases they did the unthinkable -- they sat next to
each other.
Hundreds were viciously beaten and arrested by white supremacists and local
lawmen, and one bus was firebombed -- an image that horrified and
embarrassed the nation.
The Freedom Riders went South in waves from May-September 1961.
When the rides ended, so did segregation in interstate travel at bus depots,
train stations and airports. This month marks the 50th anniversary of the
Freedom Rides.
Many Freedom Riders attended a reunion earlier this month in Chicago. While
there, more than 178 of them -- including Gleason, 74, of Franklin, and
Randolph, 71, of Farmington Hills -- were honored by Oprah Winfrey, who used
one of her last shows to pay tribute to them.
Without the Freedom Riders, there would be no her, Winfrey said.
"If it were not for these American heroes, this country would be a very
different place right now," Winfrey said. "The lives of millions of you
watching at home would be dramatically different. I know my life would be
were it not for them."
Though Gleason, who is white, and Randolph, who is black, come from very
different backgrounds, they were united in their mission.
A Mississippi police captain described Randolph as "the root of the trouble,
he and his group," but Randolph. hadn't traveled to Jackson looking for
trouble.
He went looking for justice.
Segregation laws were vigorously enforced in the South despite federal
rulings that had declared them illegal.
Randolph was a 21-year-old college student at Virginia Union University who
was simply tired of being treated like a second-class citizen because his
skin was dark.
He had grown up in a mostly white community in New Haven, Conn. He didn't
experience racism until he went to college in Richmond in 1958.
There, for the first time, he saw signs that told him where he could and
could not go and what he could and could not do.
"It made me feel less than what I was," says Randolph, a retired sales
manager for Bristol-Myers Squibb, who settled in metro Detroit when the
company transferred him here.
So, even though he knew he was risking his life by doing so, he got on a
Trailways bus bound for Mississippi with two other black men and three
whites, one a woman.
"Even though I knew it was dangerous I was more than willing to have that
opportunity," says Randolph in a soft-spoken, gentlemanly manner. "I was
afraid. But they (racists) would have won if they knew that all they had to
do to stop us from coming down there was to beat us and throw us in jail. I
knew we had to keep coming."
It wasn't Randolph's first time going to jail for challenging segregation
laws. He was among 34 college students arrested the year before after they
sat down at a fine dining restaurant in an upscale Richmond department
store.
"Getting on the bus just seemed like the natural thing to do after the
sit-ins in Richmond," Randolph says.
Richard Gleason was a 24-year-old minister working in a predominantly black
public housing project in Chicago when he decided to get on the bus.
News accounts of the time stirred something in his soul.
"But more than that, I knew what it was to be disrespected and feel
helpless," says Gleason, who grew up poor in Lyons, Ohio, where he was
bullied and taunted for it.
Gleason called Martin Luther King Jr.'s office in Atlanta to find out how he
could help and was directed to a Trailways bus from Montgomery to Jackson.
"I know we were supposed to go to the colored waiting room, but I don't
remember if we ever got there," he says. "When the bus pulled into the
station, there were already paddy wagons waiting for us." He was charged
with breach of peace.
Gleason said he's often asked why he, a white man, joined the Freedom
Riders.
"If we believe in the beloved community that Dr. King talked about, it isn't
about black or white, it's about humanity,'' Gleason says.
Gleason is no longer an active minister. However, he's still working to make
life better for others, through one of his hobbies -- gardening. He does
horticulture therapy -- helping people in senior citizen residences use
gardening to boost their emotional and physical well-being.
Both Gleason and Randolph say they hope the renewed attention to the Freedom
Rides will help today's generation appreciate the freedom struggle and
motivate them to improve their own lives and communities.
"At the time, I didn't understand the magnitude of what we were doing," says
Randolph who last year got an official apology from the state of Virginia
for his arrest at the department store. "I think young people today need to
know that the things they take for granted didn't just happen."
Gleason agrees: "I hope young people have a sense of history, but more than
that, I hope that they will be inspired to carry the torch on. This is a
relay race. It's time for each of us to pick up our torch and do what we can
for the good of humanity."
Original Page:
http://www.freep.com/article/20110518/FEATURES01/105180315/Local-men-who-were
-Freedom-Riders-50-years-ago-say-struggle-isn-t-over
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