Freedom Rides Research Paper

Evan Abounassar
Mr. Ettinger
U.S. History
20 May 2016

The Freedom Rides of 1961 On December 5, 1960, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in the case of Boynton versus Virginia. The case overturned a law-court conviction of a black law student, Bruce Boynton, for trespassing in the “whites-only” section of a bus terminal restaurant. The Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public transportation was illegal because such segregation violated the Interstate Commerce Act. However, the U.S. Government did not actively enforce the ruling and many bus terminals continued to segregate the races. To challenge this, the Interracial Civil Rights Organization known as, C.O.R.E.(The Congregation of Racial Equality), decided to draw attention

As Farmer and his riders made their way into the south, the campaign began to gain recognition from civil rights leaders such as Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King Jr. Upon their arrival in Atlanta, King praised the riders for their non-violent, direct action, but he warned them of future struggles, expressing that they would be lucky to make it out of Alabama alive. Activist and Georgia Congressman, John Lewis, who at the time was a twenty one year-old ministry student, was the first of the Freedom Riders to be attacked when he and a fellow rider attempted to enter a “whites-only” waiting room at the Rock Hill Greyhound station in South

On May 14, 1961, just outside of Anniston, Alabama, a Greyhound bus full of Freedom Riders was run off the rode, where a mob of hostile southerners attacked the bus with stones and firebombs. The passengers barely managed to escape the burning vehicle. On that very day, many Freedom riders who arrived at the Trailways bus depot in Birmingham, Alabama suffered savage and bloody assaults. Among several beaten by the Klu Klux Klan was 61 year-old Walter Bergman, a college professor from Detroit, Michigan. Undaunted, he urged others to join the cause and “strike while the iron is hot.” His fellow rider, Reverent B. Elton Cox, an outspoken minister from North Carolina, also remained defiant, saying he “[preferred] death to segregation” (B. Elton Cox). Jim Zwerg, a 21 year-old studying to be a Congregational Minister, was the victim of an ambush attack a week later at the Greyhound bus station in Montomery, Alabama. Screaming, “nigger-lover,” the mob pummeled him, fracturing his teeth and injuring his back. Trained in non-violence, like his co-riders, he never struck