A Wind of Change – 50 Years After the Freedom Rides

May 14, 1961. The first group of Freedom Riders (conceived of by the Congress of Racial Equality) had their bus set afire outside of Anniston, Alabama, where a white mob had followed them from the city. (Bettman / CORBIS)

Last week Search screened the PBS documentary Freedom Riders, released earlier this year for the 50^th anniversary of the 1961 Freedom Rides. The Rides took place from May to November 1961 and were a movement in which Black and White Americans tested racial prejudice in the Jim Crow South by traveling together on commercial buses. Although the US Supreme Court had banned segregation on interstate buses in 1946, the Southern states did not enforce this law. The Freedom Riders knew that they were risking a violent response, but were willing to put their lives on the line for justice and equality.  The movement had an enormous impact on American society, demonstrating the power of non-violent action and the depth of America’s racism. It also showed Black Americans that there were fair-minded White people who were willing to risk their lives for equal rights.

Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enacted between 1876 and 1965 that mandated de jure segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly “separate but equal” status for African-Americans. However, the very existence of these laws institutionalized inequality. According to Diane Nash, one of the leaders of the Freedom Rides, “the very fact that there were separate facilities said that black people were so subhuman that they couldn’t use public facilities.”  John Seigenthaler, an assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy who was the federal government’s chief negotiator in assuring protection for the Freedom Riders from the Southern states, also pointed out that Americans in the 1960s “were blind to the reality of racism and afraid, I guess, of change.”  The Freedom Rides would be one of the chief catalysts for change in Southern segregation laws.

One of the major issues emphasized in the film was the muted response that the Freedom Riders received from major leaders of the Civil Rights movement as well as from the White House. Many activists believed that by directly challenging segregation laws, the Riders were courting violence, thus contradicting the nonviolent nature of the movement.   Even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was initially opposed to the movement. According to one of the activists interviewed in the film, when the Riders met Dr. King in Atlanta on their journey south, he told them “I’m not going to get on the buses with you and if I were you I wouldn’t go to Alabama.”

Not only were the Freedom Rides not wholeheartedly supported by the movement, they initially received outright opposition from the White House.  When President Kennedy was elected in 1960, there was hope that this would mean progress for the Civil Rights Movement but the Kennedy’s did not want to antagonize White Southerners, who made up the base of the Democratic Party. Civil Rights were also not a high priority for Kennedy, who was more focused on foreign relations, especially those with the USSR.

The administration’s hand was finally forced to action by mob violence in Alabama toward the riders as well as the inaction of the state government.  Yet even Kennedy’s initial action was not to take a stand in favor of civil rights, but rather to try to stop the Rides so that the violence, and consequently bad publicity, would end.  Kennedy was on his way to an important summit with Khrushchev when some of the worst violence occurred and international news media was filled with stories of mobs openly attacking the Riders while police turned a blind eye.

“Once you embrace nonviolence the first person to be changed is you”

— Jim Zwerg, Freedom Rider

Eventually, the inaction of the Alabama government forced Kennedy to threaten to commit federal troops to protect the Riders if the state government was unable or unwilling to do so. This was the first time that the Kennedy administration identified with the side of civil rights.  However, even at this point the administration was not fully in support of the Riders.  They made an implicit deal with the Mississippi government that the Freedom Riders would be allowed to enter Mississippi but would be arrested at the bus station for “breach of peace” and sent to Parchman Farm, the most dreaded prison in the South.

The Riders were undaunted and merely changed their strategy to fill the jails. Robert Kennedy urged for “cooling off period,” calling the Rides unpatriotic during the height of the Cold War.

He was refused, and rather than cool off, the Riders redoubled their efforts. Over the course of the summer of ’61 more than 400 ordinary citizens would feel the call to action; they converged on Jackson Mississippi where they were promptly arrested.

“I got up one morning in May and I said to my folks at home, ‘I won’t be back today because I am a Freedom Rider. It was like a wave or a wind. And you didn’t know where it was coming from but you knew you were supposed to be there.”

— Pauline Knight-Ofusu, Freedom Rider

On September 22, the ICC forbade bus segregation and the new policies went into effect on November 1, a mere six months after the Rides began.  It was the first unambiguous victory for the Civil Rights Movement.

The courage and determination of the Freedom Riders is something that should resonate with all Americans, and continues to do so, even beyond our shores. The movie also puts into perspective how recent the Civil Rights Movement was and how much remains unchanged. Challenges to civil rights continue and Freedom Rider’s example, of people finding common ground to do what is right is a powerful one, needed as much now as in 1961.

Earlier this year, students from all over the country participated in a Freedom Ride retracing the steps of the 1961 movement in honor of the 50th anniversary (Trymaine Lee)

Interested readers can purchase the DVD from PBS’s website  or watch the film online.