On May 4, 1961, thirteen civil-rights activists—seven blacks and six
whites—led by James Farmer (1920–1999) set out in two buses from
Washington, D.C. They called themselves freedom riders, and they
were heading to New Orleans, Louisiana, via the states of the Deep
South—Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina. These
were Jim Crow states where segregation, the enforced separation of races
in almost every aspect of public life, had prevailed since the nineteenth
century.
The freedom riders, who were sponsored by the nonviolent civilrights group Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), were determined to
speed up the process of desegregation (elimination of practices that separate people by race) in the South. In direct violation of Jim Crow laws,
black freedom riders planned to sit in the front of the buses while white
freedom riders sat in the back. They would “desegregate” every station
along the way by having the black riders use the “white” waiting rooms
while the white riders used the “colored” facilities. The riders were
trained in nonviolent activism (see Civil Disobedience) and knew that hostile segregationists in the South were determined to stop them. They
steeled themselves for the worst.
Violence in Alabama
On the first part of the trip, there were minor incidents, but it was in
Alabama that the two buses carrying the freedom riders met with violence. An angry mob met the first bus in Anniston, Alabama, slashing its
tires before the bus could pull away. When a flat tire forced the bus driver
to stop outside of town, the mob caught up and renewed its attack. In
the frenzy, someone threw a firebomb into the crowded bus; the freedom
riders barely managed to escape before the bus burst into flames.
The other bus fared no better. City authorities in Birmingham,
Alabama, had failed to provide police protection for the riders, and an
angry mob assaulted the freedom riders at the bus depot. Many were injured, and one of the riders was crippled for life.
The riders fled to New Orleans. With no bus drivers willing to transport them and the threat of violence growing, CORE decided to end its
project. But civil-rights activists across the nation had been watching.
Determined to prevent the segregationists from ending the freedom
rides, members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) quickly made a new plan. Despite the obvious danger, ten students, including one of the riders from the original two buses, John
Lewis (1940–), prepared to finish the freedom rides.
Riot in Montgomery
National newspapers, television, and radio had covered the violence
against the first freedom riders, shocking Americans with the scenes of
mob brutality. When the second group of freedom riders arrived in
Birmingham to begin their journey, the eyes of the nation were upon
them. In Washington, D.C., Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy
(1925–1968) had found a bus driver willing to transport the freedom
riders and had obtained assurance from Alabama’s segregationist governor, John Malcolm Patterson (1921–), that they would be protected. As
the freedom riders’ bus left Birmingham, a busload of policemen and a
helicopter followed. When the bus arrived in Montgomery, however, all
protection disappeared, and another mob attacked. With television cameras rolling, the mob severely beat the riders with lead pipes, bricks, and
bats. The city police allowed the beatings to continue for some time before they intervened. Kennedy was outraged, and immediately sent six
hundred U.S. marshals (federal law enforcement officers) to protect the
riders.
After the bloodied freedom riders escaped the mob and were helped
to safety by local families, they gathered with their supporters at
Montgomery’s First Baptist Church. There, minister and civil-rights
leader Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) was preparing to address
the crowd. A white mob gathered outside the church. As evening fell, the
mob dissolved into rioting. A force of two hundred federal marshals was
barely able to keep the mob from burning down the church. Finally, at
2 AM, Patterson sent state troops to restore order. Prison in Jackson
On May 25, after Alabama policemen drove the freedom riders to the
state line, twenty-seven of them set off by bus for Jackson, Mississippi, to
continue their mission. At the Mississippi state line, they found the state’s
national guard (military reserve units controlled by the state, but
equipped by the federal government) lining both sides of the highway. At
the Jackson bus depot, the police quietly escorted the riders into the
whites-only waiting room and out the other side, and then arrested them
for trespassing. The judge who heard their case refused to listen to their
defense and sentenced them to thirty days in Parchman State Penitentiary,
a segregated jail known for its abuse of African American inmates.
That summer, hundreds of activists followed the freedom riders’ example, and many were arrested for it. In the fall, Robert Kennedy convinced the Interstate Commerce Commission (a federal regulatory
agency) to enforce a 1960 Supreme Court ruling that banned segregation in interstate travel (travel from state to state).
The freedom rides put President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963;
served 1961–63) on notice that civil-rights leaders expected his administration to take action to uphold the law. The civil rights movement
also sent a clear message to the white segregationists that ugly mob violence would not stop civil-rights workers’ efforts to integrate the South.
Indeed, the freedom riders had proven that mob violence was actually its
own worst enemy, because it turned national opinion against segregation
and brought the forces of the federal government squarely into the desegregation movement.