Freedom is the ability to make contact with other races, speak and act regardless of skin color, and most of all, sit where you want on public transportation without being penalized. Before 1961, public transportation was segregated immensely among the races. Colored people, regardless of sex, were looked down upon for their skin and couldn’t mix with the whites. Instead, whites were treated as royalty. Colored people had to give up their seats for the “higher” race, stand up when there were no seats. African Americans were harassed and assaulted on buses eminently. In the article, “Freedom Riders end racial segregation in Southern U.S. public transit, 1961,” researched by Gavin Musynske, he proves how both the African American and white came …show more content…
International pressure was pressed onto John F. Kennedy for a racial change in the United States, at the time most southern state politicians were rallying together to boycott the new ruling by the supreme court. In the other spectrum CORE leaders have hit a dead end in the road; with no bus company willing to provide a bus nor a bus driver for the freedom riders, the freedom riding pan was shut down entirely. However, not until a few activists from the SNCC orchestrated a new group of freedom riders, now consisting of ten students to continue the freedom ride where it has been ended. The new freedom riders were to continue to move the burning flames of liberty toward their final destination of New Orleans, no matter if it meant death and misery. As the new group assembled itself it began to gain nationwide attention faster than it assembled itself, and John F. Kennedy knew that another mob attack would ruin his career of being president and running for a second …show more content…
King called for protection by the states attorney’s office which responded quickly by dispatching federal marshals, but before arriving the state of Alabama governor, “declared martial law in the city and dispatched the National Guard to restore order” as stated in the article, “FEDERAL MARSHALS CALLED IN”. On May 24th, 1961 the freedom riders commenced their journey toward Jackson, Mississippi. A state heavily known to be difficult on minorities known for its injustice and cruelty, there once the freedom riders arrived there were greeted by over 700 hundred followers of the freedom riders, however they were not allowed to enter the waiting areas of the bus terminal. According to the article, “FEDERAL MARSHALS CALLED IN” it states, “those who attempted to use the whites-only facilities were arrested for trespassing and taken to the maximum-security penitentiary in Parchman, Mississippi.” Now that the freedom riders were in the process of receiving a hearing for the so called crimes they’ve committed, they were not heard out for their defense instead during the hearings the judge turned his attention away from the riders and mandatorily sentenced the riders to thirty days in
Black liberation was stalled once again in 1961 and 1962, as white savagery reared its head again and black people were forced to deal with the reality that success was not inevitable, yet. Still more "sit-ins", "shoe- ins" were led to combat segregation in public places which were met with violent responses from some white people. These responses ranged from burning down a bus with black people to assaulting black passengers on a train car in Anniston. These racist white people also targeted other white people who were deemed as sympathizers to black struggle or "nigger lovers". Police refused to arrest the white aggressors and in some cases also refused to protect the black people. The Freedom Rides resulted in both losses and gains in the civil rights movement. People came to the realization that justice will not be won through merely trying to persuade Southern whites with peaceful protest but only "when
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 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.
This documentary is based on Raymond Arsenault’s book “Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice”. It was a radical idea organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) that alarmed not only those who challenged the civil rights but also deliberately defied Jim Crows Law that were enacted between 1876 and 1965, by challenging the status quo by riding the interstate buses in the South in mixed racial groups. This law segregated public services like public transportation, public places, public schools, restrooms, restaurants, and even drinking fountains for black and whites. Though these activists were faced by various bitter racism, mob violence and imprisonment, they were successful in desegregating the buses and bus facilities in the Deep South in September 22, 1961. They strove for nonviolent protest for justice and freedom of African Americans freedom.
Of the confrontations, the first one encountered by the Freedom Riders was in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was here that Joseph Perkins was arrested for attempting to get his shoes polished in a whites’-only shoeshine chair. After choosing no bail, Perkins spent two nights in jail. However, this was nothing for Perkins, who had spent two years in the army and engaged in other civil rights movements. After leaving the military, Perkins joined in on the lunch sit-ins to end counter segregation. Because of his great accomplishments and bravery, the CORE thought he would be a positive addition to the group; therefore, they asked him to join in August of 1960...
The Freedom Rides was a landmark event in the civil rights movement. The 1961 Freedom Rides were a series of organized interstate bus rides to the South, meant to challenge the discriminatory Jim Crow Laws. Although the Rides were a form of civil disobedience, technically, they were protesting peacefully to maintain the federal laws against discrimination.
Gross, Terry. "Get On the Bus: The Freedom Riders of 1961." NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.
Well, On April 10, 1963, Bull Connor obtained an injunction barring the protests and subsequently raised bail bond for those arrested from $300 to $1,200. Fred Shuttles worth called the injunction a "flagrant denial of our constitutional rights" and organizers prepared to defy the order. The decision to ignore the injunction had been made during the planning stage of the campaign. The SCLC and myself had obeyed court injunctions in their Albany protests and reasoned that obeying them contributed to the Albany campaign's lack of success. In a press release they explained, "We are now confronted with recalcitrant forces in the Deep South that will use the courts to perpetuate the unjust and illegal systems of racial separation". Incoming mayor Albert Boutwell called the SCLC organizers and myself were "strangers" whose only purpose in Birmingham was "to stir inter-racial discord". Connor promised, "You can rest assured that I will fill the
It began on February 1, 1960, in Greensboro, North Carolina when four black students seated themselves at the whites only lunch counter and refused to leave until they were served. After the first sit-in, it began happening all over the country and by the end of the year, 70,000 blacks staged sit-ins. Throughout this, over 3,600 people were arrested. This movement was successful, but it demonstrated non-violent protests. After this movement began, several organizations developed. Such programs include; The NAACP, SNCC, SCLC, CORE, and the Black Panthers. The NAACP stands for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, while the SNCC stands for the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee. The SCLC stands for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who started a segregation protest traveling to Birmingham, Alabama who had the reputation of one of the most segregated cities in the United States. On May 2, 1963, over six hundred protesters were arrested, and the majority was teenage high schoolers. The next day, the police chief, Bull Conor, ordered his police officers to shoot the protestors with high-powered water hoses ordered their dogs to attack them. By the end of the march, only twenty people reached the City Hall. After the Birmingham demonstrations, the blacks gained support from the people from the North because they witnessed how violent the South was towards the black protestors. The CORE is for the Congress of Racial Equality and started the first series of Freedom Riders in May of 1961. They traveled on two interstate buses starting in Washington D.C. and traveling to New Orleans. The people who disagreed with this movement threw stones and burnt these traveling buses in order to show their dislikeness of the blacks. All of these programs promoted rights for African Americans. The Black Panthers was organized by the SNCC and became popular in the late 60's. It was founded in Oakland, California after they protested the bill that outlawed carrying loaded weapons in public.
Albany Movement- In 1961 Martin Luther King's third son Dexter Scott is born in the month of January. In December, Martin Luther King is invited to the Albany Movement in Albany from Dr, W. G. Anderson, the leader of the Albany movement. After king arrives to Albany, he joins the many members of the Albany Movement in protesting, and is soon arrested for protesting along with hundreds of other protesters. The city later banned Martin and his followers for protesting to make them stop. While King was in Albany, he learned about the Freedom Rides. the Freedom Rides were a campaign of bus trips from north to south. Some people slashed the riders tires, burning their own busses, the people on their busses attacked, and the rides continued, this was one of the things Martin did not support about the Freedom Rides. With the changes that the protests set on Albany, Albany would never be the same. King and the movement made a small victory in Albany, to them, this was still hope.
In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to sit in the Negro section of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Dr. Martin Luther King transformed a racial protest into a massive resistance movement in the late 1950s. In the early 1960s, the sit-in tactic was launched in Greensboro, North Carolina, when black college students insisted on service at a local lunch counter. "Freedom Riders" were sent to the South in 1961 by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to test and break down segregation laws.
The first group of Freedom Riders boarded a bus in Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961. Thirteen riders had been recruited. The planned trip would take them through Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina and then across the Deep South to Louisiana. The group hoped to reach New Orleans on May 17. Each of the riders knew the dangers involved in participating. The first confrontation took place in a Greyhound bus station in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Seven blacks attempted to enter a whites-only portion of the terminal. One of them, John Lewis, was attacked and beaten as local police watched. Through ...
During the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans sought to have their Constitutional Rights permitted. One form of protesting came forth in the form of the Freedom Rides. After slavery ended, many amendments and laws were created to ensure the rights of African Americans, but because of prejudices and racism, most of these were ignored. The Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Fergunson established "separate but equal" on interstate transportation in 1896, but in 1947 the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional. And although segregation was outlawed, Jim Crow laws still ruled the Deep South and “codified in law, sanctioned by the courts, and enforced by the ubiquitous threat of physical violence even more than legal reprisal" (Catsam 87). The Jim Crow laws drastically affected the public transportation systems of the South. The Congress of Racial Equality challenged the unfair laws with Freedom Rides, which "arose out of the need to end segregation at lunch counters, in bus terminals, as well as in other facilities essential to the intercity traveler" (Olds 17-18). The first freedom ride commenced in Washington, DC, in 1961.Because the first Freedom Riders were from the North, they didn't realize how harsh the racist South was and “violence in Anniston and Birmingham, Alabama, would prove to be too much for the first group of freedom riders, who ended up flying from Birmingham to New Orleans. . ." (Catsam 94). However the movement didn't stop there because ". . .students from the Nashville Movement, led by Diane Nash, realized that to allow violence to stop the Rides would send a message that would do incalculable harm to the movement" and the progression of the African American race (94). The students choose to continue t...
A group of people risked their life to obtain equality for African Americans in the south. The Freedom Riders were a group of around 13 people. Most of them were African Americans but there were always a few white skinned people in the group as well. There was no set leader for the Freedom Riders. The Freedom Riders rode interstate buses into the Southern United States. The south was referred to as the most segregated part of the U.S. The main goal of the Freedom Riders was to desegregate and become “separate but equal.” They had also set out to defy the Jim Crow Laws. The Freedom Riders had a little bit of help from two court cases: Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia and Boynton v. Virginia. These court cases ruled that it was unjust to enforce segregation on buses. This made it easier for the Freedom Riders. Just because the buses were desegregated didn’t make it easier for the Freedom Riders though they were harassed, beaten upon, and were called extremely rude and derogatory terms. The Freedom Riders took an alternative approach to protesting. No violence was used by the Freedom Riders whatsoever. This brought a question to mind: to ask the question what were the strategies of the Freedom Riders and how were they effective in the south. Were they successful? The Freedom Riders used strategies such as Sit INS in local bars, Non-violent protests and the Montgomery Bus Boycotts and the lack of support from the officials. The Freedom riders were very successful in their attempts to decimate segregation in the south.
This movement started in centuries-long attempts by African slaves to resist slavery. After the Civil War, American slaves were given basic civil rights. However, even though these rights were guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment, they were not federally enforced. The struggle these African-Americans faced to have their rights federally enforced carried into the next century. Through non-violent protests, the civil rights movement of the 1950 and 1960’s led to most public facilities being segregated by race in the southern states....