Sandy Hausman reports
UMW's Christopher Williams led the campaign to officially mark the Freedom Rides' first stop in Fredericksburg
Credit Christopher Williams
Chris Williams is with the Multi-Cultural Center at the University of Mary Washington. It’s named for James Farmer –an organizer of the Freedom Rides and a mentor to Williams, who met him in 1996.
“He had lost his eyesight to diabetes, and he was using a wheelchair primarily to get around," Williams recalls, "but it was his voice and his spirit that really captured my attention when I first met him. I was really in awe.”
The Freedom Riders left Washington, D.C. and stopped first at the Greyhound bus station in Fredericksburg, which – in defiance of a supreme court ruling – was still segregated.