Freedom Rides

The Supreme Court rules on December 5, 1960, that segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals is unconstitutional, but the South shows little sign of obeying this new order. On May 4, 1961, the Freedom Riders, a racially integrated group sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), resolves to get things moving by taking a bus tour through the South. They encounter some trouble in the Carolinas, but their real problems begin after they arrive in Alabama. By then, they have split into two groups, one riding a Greyhound bus, and the other riding on Trailways. Just outside Anniston, Alabama, the Greyhound is firebombed and the riders are brutally assaulted. The Trailways passengers are attacked by a mob in Birmingham. The violence is repeated in Montgomery (even though the riders are supposedly under the protection of the state patrol). Robert Kennedy, the U.S. Attorney General, finally sends 600 federal marshals to restore peace.

CORE decides to call off the rides, but the SNCC announces that it will continue them. On May 24, 27 riders leave for Jackson, Mississippi, accompanied by journalists and the Alabama National Guard. They are arrested as soon as they arrive at the Jackson Greyhound terminal. Two days later, all the activists are sent to Parchman State Penitentiary for between 40 and 60 days.

Although the Freedom Rides don't result in immediate change, they do inspire greater federal enforcement of desegregation. Both CORE and the SNCC gain wider support from across the country.

Passengers who were board a Greyhound bus sitting outside the gutted hulk of the vehicle after it was burned by a mob of whites outside Anniston, Alabama. UPI, 1961 Library of Congress