11:39 am UTC May. 4, 2021
About this series
Sixty years ago Tuesday, the first Freedom Riders departed on their journey through the South to challenge segregated buses, bus terminals, lunch counters and other facilities associated with interstate travel. These activists would be confronted, often violently, by police and mobs of white citizens, drawing international attention to social inequity in what became a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement. This year, the USA TODAY Network is examining the legacy of these trailblazers and how it informs our current moment.
It began in May.
Blood on the soles of sneakers. Burning vehicles, arrests, calls for political change and cries for justice for those who had died while society looked the other way.
Freedom Riders: 5 things to know on 60th anniversary
Updated 7:02 AM;
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By Shelia Poole The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (TNS) and Tribune Media Services
May 4 marks the 60th anniversary of the start of the Freedom Rides. Here are five things to know about the movement that helped change the course of the nation and the fight for equality.
What are the Freedom Rides?
In May 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality launched the Freedom Rides as a way challenge segregation on interstate buses and bus facilities like waiting rooms and dining counters. Groups of Black and white activists, many college students, would board Greyhound or Trailways buses and travel across the segregated South to test the law. The Freedom Rides lasted for seven months.
Freedom Riders jumpstarted justice in America. How has it changed today? columbiadailyherald.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from columbiadailyherald.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
written by one of the Civil Rights Movement s pioneers.
At 18, Charles Person was the youngest of the original Freedom Riders, key figures in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement who left Washington, D.C. by bus in 1961, headed for New Orleans. This purposeful mix of black and white, male and female activists including future Congressman John Lewis, Congress of Racial Equality Director James Farmer, Reverend Benjamin Elton Cox, journalist and pacifist James Peck, and CORE field secretary Genevieve Hughes set out to discover whether America would abide by a Supreme Court decision that ruled segregation unconstitutional in bus depots, waiting areas, restaurants, and restrooms nationwide.
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