The route of the first Freedom Ride
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides, a civil rights movement that swept the South and transfixed the nation beginning in 1961. Organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Rides were undertaken in response to the ongoing enforcement of Jim Crow travel laws, outlawed by the Supreme Court in Boynton v. Virginia (1960). On May 4, 1961, thirteen young black and white civil rights activists boarded Greyhound and Trailways buses in Washington, DC with the intention of riding to a rally in New Orleans, seated in positions that explicitly violated the Jim Crow laws.
Outside of Anniston, Alabama, the Greyhound bus was attacked and burned. Riders narrowly escaped with their lives.
The riders encountered violence throughout the South, and mobs were often abetted, or even encouraged, by local law enforcement. A bus was burned, and riders received brutal beatings on many occasions. The Kennedy Administration struck a deal with state officials that allowed the riders to be arrested—even though the laws that they were “breaking” had been negated by Boynton—in exchange for a guarantee that state resources would be used to quell the mobs.
Over 300 Freedom Riders were arrested in 1961.
Undaunted by the mobs and the possibility of arrest, CORE and SNCC sent even more riders towards Jackson and Birmingham, the cities that had seen the most violence. Over 300 riders were arrested throughout the summer and fall. Finally, in November of 1961, at the request of Robert Kennedy (acting under pressure from Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders), the Interstate Commerce Commission began to enforce the desegregation of buses demanded by Boynton as well as by an earlier ICC ruling, Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company.
The Freedom Rides were pivotal not only because of their role in ensuring the desegregation of the nation’s public transportation, but also because they were an exemplary model for the nonviolent protests that, in the coming years, would define the American civil rights movement and culminate in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In the tradition of nonviolent resistance, Riders sang on the streets and in jail cells.
As we begin to think about our new theme, Creative Resistance: Art as Activism, the Freedom Riders also provide a reminder that collective creative movements can inspire and prompt change. As the above photograph demonstrates, Freedom Riders sang on the streets and they sang in jail cells. Early in the Freedom Rides, Bull Connor, infamous Public Safety Coordinator of Birmingham, released Riders from prison because of their songs. After dropping them off in Memphis, Connor stated, “I couldn’t take their singing.”
Freedom Riders jailed in the next round of arrests would utilize the same form of song-protest. David Fankhauser, a participant in the Freedom Rides arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, details the role that singing played in his imprisonment here. Fankhauser recalls singing classic protest songs such as “We Shall Overcome,” “If I Had a Hammer,” “Let My People Go,” and “This Little Light of Mine,” among others. In Mississippi’s Parchman State Penitentiary, Fankhauser and other Riders refused to stop singing. As punishment, their mattresses were taken away. When the songs continued, the screens on the windows were also removed. The cells soon filled with mosquitoes, and to combat the infestation, guards drenched the cells (and bodies) of the still-singing protesters with DDT. Soon after this dreadful night, a prison inspection was undertaken, leaving the jailed Freedom Riders with promises of better treatment, whether or not they continued singing. They did continue. After being held for forty days, Fankhauser and the other Riders were released on bail. During those weeks, the songs were invaluable tools that both kept up the jailed Riders’ spirits and forced prison authorities to really think about what the Riders were doing.
Seventy-five percent of the Riders were under 35, making it a youthful movement that sparked the greater civil rights activism of the mid-1960s.
Fifty years out, as we think about the Rides and pay tribute to the Riders, Neighborhood Writing Alliance writers are using the Freedom Rides as a source of artistic inspiration. Our current theme, Creative Resistance, examines how art can be used as activism and, in keeping with the NWA’s mission, as a tool that provokes dialogue and promotes change. Last week, many of our writers viewed Stanley Nelson’s new documentary, Freedom Riders, and will reconvene soon to write and share pieces inspired by the film and by their personal memories of the civil rights era.
We’d love to invite you to join our discussion. Here are a few of the prompts NWA writers are using to engage with the legacy of the Freedom Rides. Please use them to inspire your own thoughts in our “comments” section!
(1) The Freedom Rides was primarily a youth-run movement—the average Rider age was under 35. They intentionally put their lives in jeopardy to participate in a movement that would, in the coming years, have an enormous impact on the nation. What message does that send to the youth of today?
(2) When did you learn about The Freedom Rides?
(3) What parallels or contrasts do you see between how racism is perpetuated now and 50 years ago?
We’ll present our Freedom Rides writing on May 7 with the Illinois Humanities Council’s Traveling Down Freedom’s Main Line: The Freedom Rides at 50. This special reading and performance of Freedom Rides-inspired art, presented in partnership with WBEZ, will bring together the Neighborhood Writing Alliance, the Congo Square Theatre, the Free Street Theatre, and Young Chicago Authors. Visit WBEZ’s event page for more information about the program and how to RSVP. We hope to see you there!
[...] and new found interest in performing my poetry. I have also been involved in the performances Traveling Down Freedom’s Main Line: The Freedom Riders at 50 and If These Blocks Could Talk with the NWA. For The Freedom Riders at 50 [...]
During the summer to the fall of 1961 how many freedom riders were there in all?
I agree with Ann and Sue, and I wonder WHEN Americans will again be willing to risk their lives for change. What would Mubarak would’ve done or said if Egyptians would have rioted and protested behind their computer screens rather than in the streets? Probably, the same thing our politicians do–nothing. We need another King or Kennedy to inspire and lead. “It ain’t me” though. I’m not that charismatic or persuasive. And now, there are soooo many issues, I suppose it’s difficult to rally masses behind one specific. In reality, it’s obvious I don’t have the answers, but the Tunisians and Egyptians give me faith.
I was in grade school during the Freedom Rides and honestly we did not hear much about them at the time. The 60s were such a time of change-for my family, having a Catholic elected as President was a huge thing since we were Catholics and believe it or not, faced prejudice in our suburban neighborhood at the time. I do think the Freedom Riders impacted those of us who came of age in the late 60s, I wore black armbands in high school to protest the Vietnam War and was given a week of detention for walking out of school during the Moratorium Against the War. I was very affected by reading “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and hearing representatives of the Black Panthers come to my (nearly) all white high school to speak. I became an activist in those years and haven’t stopped yet. Reading, watching and hearing the young people in Egypt and Tunisia marching for freedom gives me hope that young people are still willing to take action when they see injustice.
This is a wonderful background piece to this year’s theme of creative resistance. What I love about the freedom riders’ resistance is how they used their bodies so effectively through singing, making human chains, and simply being present when they were not wanted. Today it is so easy to feel involved because of having signed a petition or letter that came already written over the internet. There’s nothing like marching in the midst of hundreds or thousands of people, adding one’s voice to the cheers at a public rally, or lighting a candle at a vigil. The internet is so useful, and I’m delighted to have it, but the freedom fighters remind me that there is nothing like being there. Presente!
yes.But during the summer of 1961 how many freedom riders were there in all?