How did the Freedom Riders Change society? African Americans had a struggle for decades to win legal equality. In 1961, A group of 13, African American and white civil rights activists; challenged segregation and interstate buses and in terminals. They also challenged federal officials to enforce the U.S law. The Freedom Riders boarded buses and headed for Louisiana, with a mission to confront violent resistance from white citizens and law in Alabama. During the conflict, which continued all summer, hundreds of protestors were jailed or in attacks by pro segregation mobs. Freedom Riders changed society through; training, nonviolence, and acts of courage. Training was a Main priority, Freedom Riders were taught and helped to understand and …show more content…
It wasn’t easy being a Freedom Rider: going through the pain, sit-ins, always traveling, going to jail, getting beat, etc.; that’s only half of what they go through. But what is more surprising is most of the freedom riders were college students. These students were coached in the art of nonviolent protest by multiple veterans such as the Rev. James M. Lawson Jr. The students, both black and white, and they knew they were risking their lives by traveling on Greyhound and Trail way buses into the rough and violently segregated South. Most of the freedom Riders never maintained their college degrees; their lives were deflected- they never got back on track. They made real sacrifices. They embarked on the Rides knowing the danger but firmly committed to the ideals of non-violent protests, aware that their actions could provoke a terrible response but they were willing to put their lives on the line for the cause of justice. "The lesson of the Freedom Rides is that great change can come from a few small steps taken by courageous people; and that sometimes to do any great thing, it's important that we step out alone”
Cesar Chavez was born on March 31, 1927 in Yuma, Arizona. He was a field worker was realizing every day the injustice they were passing through, they had no rights as other workers because the field workers were not as important at the time. Cesar Chavez wanted others to see how they were treated and how they were suffering, but at the same time he wanted fieldworkers realized that what was happening was something unfair and unequal. In his honor was left his house to represent the hope that everything can be done, to represent a new beginning for all field workers and to remember everything he did. Cesar Chavez improved every farm worker, and made a great impact. Sites representing Cesar Chavez through his success on the rights of farm workers.
When the call went out in the summer of 1961 for volunteers to ride buses throughout the South to help integrate public transportation, a large percentage of the people who made a commitment to take on this dangerous assignment were Jews. To be exact, nearly two-thirds of the Freedom Riders were Jewish which is “quite an amazing feat for a minority which made up less than 2% of the entire American population” (Weinblatt 5). Although Jews and African Americans are two very distinct, and often opposing, cultural groups in our society, the great struggle to end racism in America meshed these two groups tightly together. Their shared motivations, expectations and experiences in dealing with white racists during the civil rights movement are amazingly similar, especially when they are compared in the writings of African American essayist and activist James Baldwin and the personal recollections of the Jewish Freedom Riders.
On May 4, 1961, the Freedom Riders left the safety of the integrated, northern city of Washington D.C. to embark on a daring journey throughout the segregated, southern United States (WGBH). This group of integrated white and black citizens rode together on buses through different towns to test the effectiveness of newly designed desegregation laws in bus terminals and areas surrounding them (Garry). Founded by the Congress of Racial Equality (Garry) , or CORE, the first two Freedom Ride buses included thirteen people as well as three journalists to record what would become imperative historical events in the Civil Rights Movement. This group of fifteen people would begin to emerge as an organization that would eventually reach 400 volunteers (WGBH). Those involved were mostly young, college students whose goal it was, as said by the CORE director James Farmer, to “…create a crisis so that the federal government would be compelled to enforce the law.” (Smith). But on their journey throughout these southern states, the Freedom Riders faced many challenges, threats, and dangers.
On December 5, 1955, thousands of African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama walked, carpooled, or hitchhiked to work in an act of rebellion against segregation on buses. This bus boycott was not the first of its kind – black citizens of Baton-Rouge, Louisiana had implemented the same two years prior – but the bus boycott in Montgomery was a critical battle of the Civil Rights Movement. Though the original intent of the boycott was to economically cripple the bus system until local politicians agreed to integrate the city’s buses, the Montgomery Bus Boycott impacted the fabric of society in a much deeper way. Instead of only changing the symptoms of a much larger problem, this yearlong protest was the first step in transforming the way all Americans perceived freedom and equality. Though the boycott ended when the Supreme Court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional, this was not directly caused by the refusal to ride buses, and thus cannot be defined as the primary triumph of the boycott. Instead, the Montgomery Bus Boycott succeeded in changing the consciousness of millions of Americans, specifically southern blacks. A revolution of the mind was the greatest success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and this transformation occurred due to the small validations throughout the boycott that African Americans, as unified, free citizens, had power.
The Australians got the ideas of non-violent direct action from Martin Luther King Jr and the bus trip going around a significant amount of distance protesting and raising awareness for the affected race, when a group of students went to the United States to protest against racial segregation in 1964. The events that had helped the 1965 Freedom Rides by SAFA to become a success, in the United States, include the Birmingham Campaign and Martin Luther King Jr’s
Nearly 200 years ago, after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, slavery was no longer allowed; but America was still segregated. Segregation in many public places continued especially in the South. At this time, segregation was legal. In 1892, the Supreme Court had ruled that a state could separate whites and blacks as long as the services were equal. On May 4, 1961, a diverse group of thirteen courageous individuals known as the Freedom Riders embarked on a bus journey into the South in order to challenge segregation in bus terminals.
The focus of the video documentary "Ain't Scared of your Jails" is on the courage displayed by thousands of African-American people who joined the ranks of the civil rights movement and gave it new direction. In 1960, lunch counter sit-ins spread across the south. In 1961, Freedom Rides were running throughout the southern states. These rides consisted of African Americans switching places with white Americans on public transportation buses. The whites sat in the back and black people sat in the front of the public buses. Many freedom riders faced violence and defied death threats as they strived to stop segregation by participating in these rides. In interstate bus travel under the Mason-Dixon Line, the growing movement toward racial equality influenced the 1960 presidential campaign. Federal rights verses state rights became an issue.
One hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation was written, African Americans were still fighting for equal rights in every day life. The first real success of this movement did not come until the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 which was followed by many boycotts and protests. The largest of these protests, the March on Washington, was held on August 28, 1963 “for jobs and freedom” (March on Washington 11). An incredible amount of preparation went into the event to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of people attending from around the nation and to deal with any potential incidents.
Freedom riders were civil rights activities who interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 and following years to challenge the non enforcement of the United states supreme court decisions Iren Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia 1946 and Boynton v. Virginia 1960 which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. however this rule didn't stop us from the segregation of an equal right.
The Mexican-American Cesar Chavez has changed the lives of many people. He was a kind man who devoted his life into helping people. He was a great union leader and labor organizer. Chavez’s parents taught him about the important ideas of hard work, the importance of education, and about respect. Cesar Chavez had a positive social impact on the United States during the twentieth century because he changed the lives of many farm laborers in America.
When it comes to the Declaration of Independence, it affected not only the people of the colonies, but in fact, affected people around the globe and still affects people to this very day. This single document helped inspire nearly half of the 192 nations apart of the United Nations to have their own declaration of independence (Armitage, 2007). The Declaration of Independence is seen as one of our nation’s most prestigious document and this is because it is the document that declared our independence from Great Britain and the Royal Crown. It is essentially the marking of the United States’ birth.
In the sixties, many Americans tried to stop the progress minorities were making with the civil rights movement. In 1961, a group known as the Congress of Racial Equality was attacked by mobs, while the group was testing the compliance of court orders banning segregation on interstate buses and trains and in terminal facilities (Foner 914).
In the1960s, there was the Freedom Rides and Selma, Alabama. In May of 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) placed civil rights activists on greyhoud buses to travel the deep south in order to show segregation was still around. In Aniston, Alabama, the mob caught up to a bus, slashed the tires, and a fire bombed thrown onboard bus. All riders on the bus ran off and were beaten by violent anti-civil Right individuals. In Birmingham, Alabama, Jim Zwerg, a white activist for desegregation, got off the bus first. He was badly beaten and sent to the hospital for four days. Freedoms rides stopped shortly after that for a little bit. In 1965, in Selma, Alabama, a five day march was took place. The group marching was seven hundred strong and
Stanley Nelson chronicles the journey of a group of individuals, known as the Freedom Riders, whom fought for the rights of African Americans to have the same amenities and access as the Caucasians. The purpose of the Freedom Rides was to deliberately violate the Jim Crow laws of the south that prohibited blacks and whites from mixing together on buses and trains. Expectedly, many of the Freedom Riders were beaten and the majority was imprisoned. This carried on for the majority of 1961 and culminated with the Interstate Commerce Commission issuing an order to end the segregation in bus and rail stations. Nelson encapsulates this entire movement in about two hours. At the end of the two hours, the viewer is emotionally tied to the riders. For the sake of this analysis, I will focus on a portion towards the end of the film that gives us a sense of what kind of emotions victory evoked from those vested in the Freedom Rides. Nelson’s pairing of music and song coupled with a mixture of pictures and footage provides great emphasis to the subject matter while emotionally connecting the viewer.
-The Freedom Rides were created as an act of peaceful protest against segregation in interstate bus stations and buses. In 1960 the Supreme Court (in the Boynton v. Virginia case) had ruled that segregation of interstate facilities was unconstitutional.