Civil Rights Movement
Freedom Rides 1961
BY: Abbey W. and Sequoia B.
“The Movement”
http://www.tripline.net/trip/Map_of_the_Freedom_Riders_Route-1657536071131003B660B6A5907EC2AD
Start of Freedom Rides
On May 4th 1961 a group of black and white students protested the segregation at bus terminals. The
students were recruited by the Congress of Racial Equality (C.O.R.E). Their mission was to ride through
the deep south to speak out against segregation in buses. They would use “White Only” restrooms and
other facilities to stand against the racial discrimination. They ran into lots of violence and backlash for
their actions.
The organization was modeled after the the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation. The only difference was that
women were not included in 1947.
Goals: May 4th-17th to reach New Orleans, Louisiana from Washington D.C.
“Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor (1897-1973) stated that, although he knew the
Freedom Riders were arriving and violence awaited them, he posted no police protection at the station
because it was Mother’s Day.”
--History.com
5/8/2016
The Start
The Freedom Rides took place to celebrate the decision of Brown v. Board in 1954. They wanted to
remind people that segregation in schools was announced unconstitutional, and so other places should
be as well.
Two buses left from Washington D.C and split in Atlanta where one bus went down to Montgomery, while
the other headed up towards Tennessee. One bus stayed on the railways while the other stuck to the
roads.
The buses took off on May 4th, 1961 and planned to arrive on May 17th, 1961.
Greyhound Buses
The first rides in May 4th, through 8th, went from Washington D.C. to Charlotte, North Carolina.
Through May 9th-13th, the bus travelled from Charlotte to Atlanta, Georgia.
Then on May 14th, the buses reach Birmingham where they are met by the Klu Klux Klan and local police
where they are viciously beaten.
However, under the Kennedy Administration, they are protected and able to finish their journey to New
Orleans in Louisiana.
Rationale for the Freedom Rides
Blacks needed a way to get the attention of the government's beyond the state level. They needed to
influence the federal governments in order for something to be done. Their goal was to get them to
strictly enforce non-segregation on buses and in all other forms of transportation.
Washington, DC, New Orleans: passing through: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Alabama and Mississippi.
These states represent their journey through the deep south where racism was the greatest.
Farmer (CORE’s director), “We put on pressure and create a crisis (for federal leaders) and then they
react.”
Outcome of First Greyhound Freedom
Ride
May 23rd, 1961
The First Attacks
How it started: Incendiary bomb was thrown into the bus, smashing the rear window and causing the bus to
fill up with smoke. When passengers ran out of the burning bus they were attacked by gunfire, or fists.
The other bus: The bus in Anniston was also attacked as a mob of 30 KKK members showed up with
baseball bats, chains and pipes. They beat everyone in sight including cameramen, and news reporters.
The KKK eventually faded out as police showed up.
Impact of the Cold War on Support
● At this time in light of the Cold War, America was struggling to deal with two big issues;
thermonuclear weapons, and the idea of the ‘American Dream’ in America. Domestically people
began to mold this idea of living the ‘suburban dream’ where whites would live side by side
without blacks, and not have to think about other issues again.
● Another issue was that teachers now had to teach their kids how to “duck and cover” because of
the space race, and Sputnik catalyzing the competition.
● The French had also left Vietnam and so tensions were rising and John F. Kennedy had a lot to
worry about, on top of the Civil Rights Movement.
● Not much was being done on the federal government's part because they wanted to ignore the
issue until the Cold War had calmed down. African Americans in the south only had the local and
states governments to rely on, but they didn’t do anything.
"For the Kennedy brothers, domestic affairs were an afterthought, and the Civil Rights Movement was an afterthought beyond
an afterthought," said activist and NAACP leader Julian Bond. "Now all of a sudden the whole world was watching."
Published in the
Washington Post on
June 16th, 1961.
Kennedy Administration Reaction
Kennedy Administration Reaction
-Already campaigned on a relatively pro-civil rights policy
-Wanted to focus on cold war politics
-In reference to the Freedom Rides, Kennedy tells Harris Wofford, “Can’t you get your Goddamned friends
off those buses?...Stop them.”
-John Patterson (Gov. of AL) avoided calls from the President
-JFK + admin worked to ensure physical safety for all Freedom Riders
-Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, situated U.S. Marshals in Montgomery, AL
-May 21 “siege and firebombing” of Montgomery, AL First Baptist Church
-mobilized National Guard
-Admin allowed imprisonment of F.R.s in Mississippi
-weak breach-of-peace-charges
Kennedy Administration Reaction
-Pressured the Interstate Commerce Commission
-wanted them to get rid of Jim Crow signs
-end segregation of interstate bus travel facilities
-Freedom Rides allowed his administration to be associated with the Civil Rights Movement
-Was able to support other events fighting for equality
-U of Mississippi ‘62 / U of Alabama ’63
-sent federal troops in order to protect African Americans when enrolling in the schools
-June 11, 1963: delivered a speech to Congress
-asking them to pass a bill for Civil Rights
-Said: “confronted primarily with a moral issue, not a legislative or political one”
Kennedy Administration Reaction Civil Rights Act of 1964
-Passed legislation was: Civil Rights Act of 1964
-brought an end to segregation in public places
-banned employment segregation
-race, color, religion, sex, national origin
-Proposed by JFK
-Received heavy opposition from Southern members of Congress
-LBJ signed into law (Kennedy's successor-assassinated in ‘63)
-Was the first of many additions to the Civil Rights Movement
-One more popularly known was: Voting Rights Act ‘65
-”aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans
from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment (1870) to the Constitution of the United States”
US Marshals
Right:
Kennedy
meeting with
the leaders
of March on
Washington
Outcome of the Second Freedom Ride and the SNCC
Outcome of the Second Freedom Ride
-Arrived in Anniston
-Eight KKK members went aboard the bus
-Beat the F.R.s very badly-some semi-conscience
in Birmingham on May 17
-Transported “fresh riders from Nashville” and John Lewis
-Mob awaited them at their bus terminal
-Attacked with baseball bats, bike chains and iron pipes
-Police arrested F.R.s (Protective Custody)
-eight African Americans
-two caucasians
-Riders were driven back to Tennessee without their consent
-It was either that or be released into the streets with KKK members and raging racists
SNCC:
-Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
-Formed for youth involvement in the Civil Rights
movement
-became a more radical movement
-Born out of lunch counter sit-ins and a meeting
with the SCLC - Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (led by MLK, Jr. and were concerned
that the youth wasn’t involved)
-”encouraged those who formed SNCC to look
beyond integration to broader social change and to
view King’s principle of nonviolence more as a
political tactic than as a way of life.”
-huge part of Freedom Rides
-led by James Forman, Bob Moses, and Marion
Barry
-directed most of black voter registration drivers
-Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964: three
members killed by KKK
-Because of this, Dr. King and the SNCC did not get
along
-SNCC refused the compromises made by the 1964
DNC (Democratic National Convention)
-Democratic Party refused to switch the fully
caucasian Mississippi delegation with the
integrated Freedom Democrats
-1966, Stokely Carmichael
-elected head of SNCC
-popularized term “Black Power”
-characterized new tactics and goals
-goals included “black self-reliance and
the use of violence as a legitimate
means of self-defense
-H. Rap Brown- Carmichael’s successor
-”Violence is as American as cherry
pie”
-Summer of 1967- “fires and disorders”
-Led to his arrest for instigating riots
-SNCC separated soon after his arrest
“I am sick and tired of being sick and tired”
-Fannie Lou Hamer
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/sncc
Continuing the rides...
Overall Achievement and
the Shortfall of the Freedom Rides
Overall Achievement and the Shortfall of the Freedom Rides
-Kennedy
-Shortfall:
-Problems everywhere they went
-More popular issues occurred in:
-Montgomery
-Anniston
-Birmingham
-Buses were firebombed, Riders were attacked
-Riders wanted to stay peaceful and didn’t fight back
-in the media they would look more helpless and it would turn “on-the-border” white
people in their favor
-Many were injured, many forced to take refuge in local churches, and some 300 were arrested and
held in Southern jails
Outcomes of the
many people
who survived
the freedom
rides.
Because of the Civil RIghts Act of
1964, buses (and other public
places) were finally desegregated
Presidential Facts
Franklin Pierce was arrested during his presidency for running a woman over with his horse
Teddy Roosevelt practiced a "the show must go on" mentality
Once while delivering a speech in Milwaukee, Roosevelt was shot in an assassination attempt. "I don't know whether
you fully understand that I have just been shot," he told the stunned audience. "I give you my word, I do not care a rap
about being shot; not a rap." He went on to finish the hour and a half speech with a bullet lodged in his chest.
The first attempt to assassinate a president was on Andrew Jackson by Richard Lawrence, a house painter. Both of his
guns misfired, however—an event that statisticians say could occur only once in 125,000 times. Andrew Jackson then
chased Lawrence with his walking stick.
James Monroe once chased his Secretary of State out of the White House with a pair of fire tongs.
Sources
http://www.blackpast.org/aah/freedom-rides-1961
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/rides
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/freedom-rides
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/people/john-f-kennedy
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/sncc
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-act
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/21/newsid_4350000/4350591.stm
https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/freedom-riders-end-racial-segregation-southern-us-public-transit-1961
http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_freedom_rides/
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/voting-rights-act
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Freedom_Riders.aspx#2
Free at Last? By Fred Powledge