Driving the Nashville Freedom Riders to Mississippi
While driving for Trailways, his family said one of his greatest accomplishments was driving in 1961 a group of Freedom Riders from A & I (Fisk) University in Nashville to Jackson, Mississippi. All drivers turned down the job except Ruth who was 23 at the time. Ruth was willing to aid in the cause for freedom and justice at all cost, his family said. In speaking later about his decision to transport the student activists, he said he made the decision that “if they were going to die, I was going to die with them.” This trip was a one-time roundtrip for him made during the height of the movement.