The FREEDOM RIDES: 50 years later

[Bluebear]

As the bus departs Atlanta, Dennis Climpson is eager for conversation. He wants to discuss college football this Sunday morning, but first I have a question for him.

"Have you," I ask, "ever heard of the Freedom Rides?"

Fifty years ago this May, a group of 15 passengers traveled the same route. Like us, they were black and white sitting together on a bus - at the time unheard of in the segregated South. Climpson, 48, says he hasn't heard of the protest but is intrigued. He turns to his smart phone to check Wikipedia.

In 1961, the Freedom Riders were traveling on two buses from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans to test compliance with federal integration laws.

Charles Person, a Georgia native who at 18 was the youngest rider, still remembers entering Alabama that Mother's Day. "There was tension. It was kind of eerie," Person says from his home. He expected to be roughed up, but didn't imagine much worse. "This was broad daylight." Later that day, the Ku Klux Klan would set one bus on fire and beat riders on the other. The racial violence shocked - and changed - America.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/20/TR7J1JF3UH.DTL#ixzz1N43ORsjm

[midnight]

1. Watching this series on PBS... It renews your gratefulness for

those who refused to be discouraged...

[EFerrari]

2. A group of ladies who were in SNCC

put together some memoirs that are riveting.

Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts By Women In SNCC

Faith Holsaert; Joan Trumpauer Mulholland; Martha Prescod Norman Noonan; Judy Richardson; Betty Robinson; Maria Varela; Jean Smith Young

About the Program

Editors Betty Robinson, Judy Richardson, Jean Smith Young, Martha Prescod Norman Noonan, Faith Holseart, and contributors Joan Trumpauer Mulholland and Maria Varela present a collection of fifty-two women's recollections of the Civil Rights movement and their time spent working for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The contributors are of varied race, class, and geographic origin and describe a myriad of events that range from the 1963 March on Washington to the Mississippi Freedom Summer. The panel discussion is hosted by Busboys & Poets in Washington, DC.

http://www.booktv.org/Program/11884/Hands+on+the+Freedom+Plow+Personal+Accounts+By+Women+In+SNCC.aspx

[chalky]

6. As inspiring as I found the first group of riders to be

it was the second wave of Freedom Riders who really struck a chord for me. These people saw the horrors inflicted on the first group and said, "We can't let that stop us. We're riding anyway".

[Starry Messenger]

3. k&r

[Bluebear]

4. Again

People need to appreciate those who came before them :)

[Starry Messenger]

5. +100,000