Freedom Riders

Organizing the Rides

Led by James Farmer, the national director of CORE, and James Peck, a pacifist and radical journalist, CORE organized two Freedom Rides, each on the same path, aboard separate Greyhound and Trailways buses. The trip was scheduled to begin in Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961, and end at New Orleans, Louisiana. Thirteen riders, most of them young white and black students in their twenties, were chosen for the Freedom Rides. The group decided that, if they were arrested along the route, they would sit in jail rather than be bailed out in order to draw attention to their cause. The goal of the riders was to challenge the failure of federal officials to enforce the Supreme Court's Boynton ruling, particularly in the Deep South, where interstate buses and facilities remained segregated.

The Rides and Violent Reaction

From Washington, D.C., the buses traveled to the towns of Richmond, Farmville, and then Danville in Virginia. Signs indicating separate facilities for blacks and whites, indicative of Jim Crow segregation, had been painted over in Richmond and Farmville, but the facilities remained grossly unequal, with the formerly black-only facilities dirty and in disrepair.

When the Freedom Riders stopped in Danville, they were refused service when they sat at the lunch counter in the bus station. As the buses continued their journey into the Deep South, stopping next at Greensboro, North Carolina, the overt signs of Jim Crow segregation became more evident. At the bus stops along the route, large signs directed passengers to separate black-only or white-only eating, waiting, and bathroom facilities.

All along the route, news reporters covered the trip, publishing accounts of the Freedom Riders as they continued south. When the buses stopped in Rock Hill, South Carolina, local hoodlums were waiting for their arrival. Several local whites attempted to stop the Freedom Riders from using the segregated facilities. They assaulted John Lewis, a black rider, and Albert Bigelow, a white rider, as both attempted to enter the white waiting room.

Committed to the principles of nonviolence, the Freedom Riders did not try to counterattack when faced with local opposition or attacks against them. Local community supporters in many of the towns along the route provided food, drink, and shelter for the Freedom Riders as they stayed overnight and prepared to continue their trip the next day.

In many of the towns along the route, local law enforcement officials arrested the Freedom Riders for vagrancy or for disturbing the peace as they attempted [Page 350]to use formerly all-white facilities. Meanwhile, local supporters, many of them active participants in their own sitins and protest movements, gave the Freedom Riders support when they were arrested, released, and continued on their way.

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