October 10, 2025 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in 1961, a group of young men and women boarded buses to test whether the Supreme Court’s desegregation rulings would be honored in the South. They became known as the Freedom Riders. Their mission was met with brutal violence as mobs and members of the Ku Klux Klan attacked them for daring to sit as equals. But they refused to turn back. Kirk Higgins of the Bill of Rights Institute shares the story of one of the most dangerous journeys of the Civil Rights Movement and the courage that carried the Freedom Riders through.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Up next a
story of one of the most important, dangerous and courageous
protests during the civil rights movement. We're talking about the
Freedom Rides of nineteen sixty one. Here to tell the
story is Kirk Higgins, the senior director of Content at
the Bill of Rights Institute, and you can check out
(00:31):
their great curriculum in American History on mybri dot org.
Let's get into the story.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Take it away, Kirk, May fourth, nineteen sixty one. A
warm spring day in our nation's capital, Washington, d C
(00:58):
buses are scattered throughout down town as school groups and
tourists flowed in to see our nation's monuments and memorials
bearing the names of our most cherished leaders, Lincoln, Jefferson,
and Washington. One bus had a very different destination in mind.
It was carrying a group of thirteen black and white
civil rights activists of various ages and backgrounds, but all
(01:18):
committed to the same cause, in all committed to non violence.
Their destination New Orleans. They'd ride through seven different states
on the way there, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi,
and finally, Louisiana. Their vision was simple, to protest segregation,
(01:41):
or more specifically, laws and states that made it illegal
for black people to ride as equals to white people
on the same bus or train. Behind it all, Executive
Director of the Congress of Racial Equality James Farmer took
his seat with the others. They tried to smile, but
(02:03):
it wasn't easy. For all. The riders knew this ride
could quite possibly be the last ride of their lives.
The risk of violence was high, and law enforcement couldn't
or in some cases, wouldn't, guarantee their safety. John Lewis
would later recall that while the seven whites and six
(02:24):
African Americans dined together at a Chinese restaurant the night
before the ride, one had remarked that they should quote
eat well because it could be their last supper. Farmer
later recalled, quote, we were told that the racists, the segregationists,
would go to any extent to hold the line on
segregation in interstate travel. So when we began the ride,
(02:45):
I think all of us were prepared for as much
violence as could be thrown at us.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
If you can never whip these budgets, if they don't
keep you in them, shephard, You've gotten to kick the
white the black.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
I've draw a line in the DARF and passed declipment
before the freedom turning and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow,
and segregation forever.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
The bus pulled out for the station. This wasn't the
first time something like this had been tried. In nineteen
forty seven, sixteen men, eight white and eight black, planned
to travel from DC to fifteen segregated Southern cities. Their
goal was to test a recent Supreme Court decision, Irene
(03:33):
Morgan versus Commonwealth of Virginia, which ruled that Virginia's law
enforcing segregation on interstate buses, Greyhounds, and the Lake was unconstitutional.
Yet Southern states refused to follow the ruling. The men
on the first Freedom Ride only made it as far
as North Carolina before some of their ranks were arrested.
Astonishing considered that they had meticulously planned their travel to
(03:56):
exclude the Deep South, where things were even worse. On
May twentieth, two of the four arrested, Bayard Rustin and
Igle Roadianko, found themselves in front of Judge Henry Whitfield,
a hardline segregationist. Rustin, a black man would get thirty
days on a chain, Gang Roadienko, a white man, would
(04:19):
get ninety simply for sitting next to one another. Explaining
the difference in his sentencing, Judge Whitfield stated that Rustin
had been quote this led by the white man Roadianko
and intentionally mispronouncing Roadienko's last name, as Rodensky stated, It's
about time that you Jews from New York learned that
you can't come down bringing your African Americans with you
(04:41):
to upset the customs of the South. Whitfield, of course
didn't use the phrase African American, preferring to use a
racial epithet instead. He further explained that he was giving
the sentence to quote teach him a lesson. All this
for doing something the Supreme Court deemed legal. But back
(05:01):
to nineteen sixty one, things were slightly different. A decade
or so after the first Freedom Riders, the colored people
only in Whites only signs had been removed from the
interstate buses themselves in the wake of the Irene Morgan
versus Commonwealth of Virginia case, but they had not been
removed in bus terminals and rest stops. The Freedom Riders
(05:26):
encountered their first signs only a mere fifty miles south
of Washington, above the restroom doors at a Greyhound stop
in Fredericksburg. It was Danville, Virginia, near the border of
North Carolina, where the riders would encounter their first real resistance,
nothing physically violent, thankfully, just a degrading refusal of service.
After talking to the manager of the rest stop, they'd
(05:47):
get their refreshments and move on, But as the riders
headed further south, the chance of violence only increased. Things
would boil over In rock Hill, South Carolina, freedom writer
and future Congressman John Lewis was met by a mob
of twenty people when he tried to enter the white
waiting room at a rest stop, only after he had
(06:09):
been severely beat at the police officer station there step in.
He had watched the events unfold for quite some time before.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
Taking any action.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Forty eight years later, one of the men who attacked him,
a former klansman who had hurled jackhandles at African Americans
and attended crossburnings, personally apologized for his actions in Lewis's
office on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 6 (06:33):
An unlikely reunion for these two men. Congressman John Lewis
and Elwyn Wilson. They met, if you can call it that,
forty eight years ago, in.
Speaker 7 (06:44):
Very different times, in a blur of angry fists and
proud protest Lewis, then a freedom writer for Doctor King,
arrived at the rock Hill, South Carolina bus depot May ninth,
nineteen sixty one and was pummeled by Wilson, who for
years has been working his way toward this moment.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
I'm sorry for what happened down then, well, that's okay.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
That's all right.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
It's almost forty eight years ago. Yeah, so remember that day. Well,
I never thought that this would happen. It says something about.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
The power of love, the power of grace, and the
power of people to be able to say I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
I feel like I got saved out there.
Speaker 6 (07:39):
One of his buddies, deeply religious, pose the question that
would finally set his soul on a different course.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
He said, if you died right now, do you know
where you would go? I said to Hall.
Speaker 6 (07:53):
And then as Elwyn Wilson watched Barack Obama become president,
something shifted in his heart.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
Vote for him, But I'm glad he's there, and I've prayed.
Speaker 7 (08:04):
For one and what now.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
I want to love people regards of what called.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
And you've been listening to Kirk Higgins, the director of
Content at the Bill of Rights Institute, telling the story
of the Freedom Rides of nineteen sixty one, and the
destination was New Orleans. The starting place was Washington, d C.
There were some bad signs to start fifty miles south
of DC, but they took the form they were manifested,
(08:36):
in the form of a denial of services. As they
headed further southoh South Carolina in particular, that's when things
turned violent. The late Congressman John Lewis was beaten badly
simply trying to use the rest stop facilities. When we
come back more of the Freedom Rides of nineteen sixty one,
(08:57):
here on our American story, and we return to our
(09:40):
American stories and our story on the Freedom Rides of
nineteen sixty one. Telling the story is Kirk Higgins, the
director of content at the Bill of Rights Institute. Let's
return to the story. Take it away, Kirk.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
The Freedom Riders continued onwards, and as they pulled into
Atlanta on Sunday, May fourteenth, they decided to split up
for the next leg of the trip. To Birmingham, Alabama.
It turned out to be a fateful decision. When the
first group reached a stop in Aniston, Alabama, an angry
(10:23):
mob of some two hundred whites surrounded their greyhound bus,
some of them armed with iron bars. They broke windows,
dented the sides, and punctured the tires. Somehow the bus
was able to drive off. It only made it six
miles down the road before the tires went flat. The
mob had followed them. Someone broke the back window and
(10:47):
hurled a fire bomb onto the bus. The bus was
immediately engulfed in thick black smoke, and the freedom Riders
fell to the floor to breathe. Some managed to make
it out of the windows, others tried to dash for
the door, only to find it blocked from the outside.
The mob was out for blood. The sound of a
policeman's gun shot up into the air caused the crowd
(11:10):
to disperse. It was some miracle that all the riders
managed to make it out of the bus alive, and
even more astonishing that they weren't killed once outside. This
wouldn't be the last round of violence those on the
Freedom Ride encounter. The next stop was Birmingham, Alabama, the
heart of the Deep South. The awfulis Eugene Connor, better
(11:38):
known as Bull Connor, paced back and forth in his
office in downtown Birmingham. Just days earlier, he had been
re elected in a landslide to his position as Commissioner
in Public Safety, his sixth term in the position. He'd
held it more or less since before World War II.
His career in politics had started after a stint as
a radio broadcaster for the Birmingham Barons baseball club. Years later,
(12:00):
Willie Mays, who played for the Birmingham Black Barons in
his youth, would remember that he quote was a pretty
good announcer, although I think he used to get too
excited end quote. His career was also built on upholding
the segregation that the Freedom Writers were challenging and the
Supreme Court had illegal. Martin Luther King Junior called to him,
(12:23):
quote a racist who prided himself on knowing how to
handle the African American and keep him in his place.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
You can never quip the budgets if you don't keep
you in them separate. You've got to keep the white
and the black. Sept A Van Washington at Little Bobby
Shops and his brother the Prince. They didn't give anything,
any word.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
If we had some trouble here.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
You've got to keep your white and black separate. He
was later known for using dogs and fire hoses against people,
including children. There would be no police protection when the
Freedom Riders pulled into Trailways bus terminal in Birmingham. Connor's
excuse was that it was Mother's Day. In reality, he
had granted a fifteen minute grace period for an extra
(13:16):
judicial beating upon the riders by members of KKK. As
the riders exited the bus to sit at the all
white counter at the rest stop, mob beat them with fists,
iron pipes, baseball bats, spike chains, and broken coke bottles.
James Peck, one of the few riders who had participated
in the first Freedom Ride in nineteen forty seven, took
the courageous decision to combat them. He stated that quote
(13:40):
they would have to kill him before hurting the other
riders end quote. Peck ended up with life threatening wounds
and required over fifty stitches, all for courageously defined e sagash.
He would later tell a reporter that he endured the
violence to quote show that nonviolence can prevail over violence. Again,
the bus was firebombed. Despite the violence, the Freedom Riders
(14:03):
fully intended to push onward with their journey. Robert Kennedy,
the Attorney General, had even arranged escort for them going
forward into Montgomery, Alabama. But it wasn't the rider's resolve,
but that of the Greyhound bus companies that would falter.
The company refused to allow more of its buses to
be destroyed or to put the lives of its drivers
in danger. Frustrated, the riders made their way to the
(14:26):
Birmingham Airport to fly to their destination of New Orleans.
When they got on the plane, all the passengers would
have to disembark due to a bomb threat. It looked
as if the freedom Rides were over, but a black
student named Diane Nash refused to back down. She feared
that the civil rights movement would face a large setback.
(14:47):
Freedom Rides did not continue. Nash had already made her
mark on the civil rights leading and participating in sit
ins that contributed to the Nashville's lunch counters being desegregated.
Despite the project being suspended by Corps, she managed to
organize another group to continue the trip. They wouldn't get
far the new Freedom Riders were arrested, transported more than
(15:09):
one hundred miles away to Tennessee, and dumped by the
side of the road. But again they were not deterred.
The courageous young people simply drove back to Birmingham and
attempted to board a bus, but the terrified driver refused to.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
Let them up.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
By this point, the Kennedy administration had gotten even more
serious and negotiated a settlement that Alabama and Greyhound officials
would accompany the New Freedom Riders to Montgomery, and state
police cars would protect the bus from any further mob violence.
That should have provided a measure of safety for the
Freedom Riders, but it did. The new bus would depart
(15:50):
Birmingham on May twentieth. Quickly, they'd be traveling ninety miles
per hour out of the city to avoid snipers and
the mob violence that had marred the protests throughout the
Deep South. But as soon as the bus left city limits,
Alabama Highway patrol would leave them to their own devices,
and in Montgomery, another mob awaited them. A young white man,
(16:12):
Jim's Werg, valiantly stepped off first and was dragged down
and beat severely by the mob. Two female riders were
being pummeled, one by a woman swinging a purse at
her head, while the other was punched in the face
by a man. Shouts of kill them out had it
(16:35):
not been for Floyd Mann someone Man was the director
of public safety in Alabama when the Freedom Riders rode
the state, and according to those who knew him, he
was destined from birth to be a legendary lawman. He
was a veteran, having served as a tailgunner on twenty
seven combat missions over Europe in A B seventeen, including
(16:56):
the first daytime raid over Berlin. He had served distinction,
having received the Distinguished Flying Cross and numerous other awards
come Warzett. By the time he was thirty, he had
become chief of police in the sizeable Alabama town of Opelika,
where he dismantled a gambling ring. And while he worked
under Governor Patterson, who vehemently opposed the Riders, he was
(17:18):
a man who believed in the rule of law and through.
When Man received information from a confidential source that the
police in Montgomery planned to be on holiday when the
Riders arrived, he jumped into a patrol car and sped
to the scene. According to an account published in the
Tuscaloosa News, quote, he wheeled into the parking lot, pulled
his revolver out of his gun belt, and placed it
(17:40):
against the temple of the biggest, meanest, slick backed, undershirt
wearing baseball bat holder, who was waiting at the door
of the bus for the freedom riders. He said, quote,
I'll give you folks five minutes to all clear out
of here, or I'll start shooting with this fellow and
we'll take names later for families. That night, Martin Luther
(18:04):
King Junior flew to Montgomery to speak. Protected by a
ring of federal marshals, King addressed a mass rally of
fifteen hundred people at First Baptist Church. He told the assembly,
with his soaring rhetoric, Alabama will have to face the
fact that we are determined to be free. We are
not afraid, and we shall overcome. So in the days ahead,
(18:26):
let us not sink into the quick sands of violence. Rather,
let us stand on the high ground of love and
not injury. Let us continue to be strong spiritual mills
that will wear out many a physical hammer. Two days later,
twenty seven freedom writers finally boarded buses safely and headed
toward New Orleans at the Mississippi border. However, they were
(18:48):
all arrested to take it to jail. Several additional attempts
were made, but all suffered the same faith. Today, the
story of the Freedom Writers lives on as a remarkable
demonstration of bravery in resilience. Their indomitable will won over
the hearts and minds of Americans who had heard about
their fight for equality. A few short years later, Congress
(19:09):
passed the Civil Rights Act. The rule of law would
prevail and African Americans and white Americans could travel as
equals across the nation.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monty Montgomery. And a special thanks to
Kirk Higgins. He's the senior director of content at the
Bill of Rights Institute. And you can learn more about
their great American History curriculum at Mybri dot org. That's
my Bri dot org. And what a story you heard
(19:45):
about courage and selflessness and pure unadulterated racism. The story
of the Freedom Rides of nineteen sixty one. Here on
our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. Up next a
story of one of the most important, dangerous and courageous
protests during the civil rights movement. We're talking about the
Freedom Rides of nineteen sixty one. Here to tell the
story is Kirk Higgins, the senior director of Content at
the Bill of Rights Institute, and you can check out
(00:31):
their great curriculum in American History on mybri dot org.
Let's get into the story.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Take it away, Kirk, May fourth, nineteen sixty one. A
warm spring day in our nation's capital, Washington, d C
(00:58):
buses are scattered throughout down town as school groups and
tourists flowed in to see our nation's monuments and memorials
bearing the names of our most cherished leaders, Lincoln, Jefferson,
and Washington. One bus had a very different destination in mind.
It was carrying a group of thirteen black and white
civil rights activists of various ages and backgrounds, but all
(01:18):
committed to the same cause, in all committed to non violence.
Their destination New Orleans. They'd ride through seven different states
on the way there, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi,
and finally, Louisiana. Their vision was simple, to protest segregation,
(01:41):
or more specifically, laws and states that made it illegal
for black people to ride as equals to white people
on the same bus or train. Behind it all, Executive
Director of the Congress of Racial Equality James Farmer took
his seat with the others. They tried to smile, but
(02:03):
it wasn't easy. For all. The riders knew this ride
could quite possibly be the last ride of their lives.
The risk of violence was high, and law enforcement couldn't
or in some cases, wouldn't, guarantee their safety. John Lewis
would later recall that while the seven whites and six
(02:24):
African Americans dined together at a Chinese restaurant the night
before the ride, one had remarked that they should quote
eat well because it could be their last supper. Farmer
later recalled, quote, we were told that the racists, the segregationists,
would go to any extent to hold the line on
segregation in interstate travel. So when we began the ride,
(02:45):
I think all of us were prepared for as much
violence as could be thrown at us.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
If you can never whip these budgets, if they don't
keep you in them, shephard, You've gotten to kick the
white the black.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
I've draw a line in the DARF and passed declipment
before the freedom turning and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow,
and segregation forever.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
The bus pulled out for the station. This wasn't the
first time something like this had been tried. In nineteen
forty seven, sixteen men, eight white and eight black, planned
to travel from DC to fifteen segregated Southern cities. Their
goal was to test a recent Supreme Court decision, Irene
(03:33):
Morgan versus Commonwealth of Virginia, which ruled that Virginia's law
enforcing segregation on interstate buses, Greyhounds, and the Lake was unconstitutional.
Yet Southern states refused to follow the ruling. The men
on the first Freedom Ride only made it as far
as North Carolina before some of their ranks were arrested.
Astonishing considered that they had meticulously planned their travel to
(03:56):
exclude the Deep South, where things were even worse. On
May twentieth, two of the four arrested, Bayard Rustin and
Igle Roadianko, found themselves in front of Judge Henry Whitfield,
a hardline segregationist. Rustin, a black man would get thirty
days on a chain, Gang Roadienko, a white man, would
(04:19):
get ninety simply for sitting next to one another. Explaining
the difference in his sentencing, Judge Whitfield stated that Rustin
had been quote this led by the white man Roadianko
and intentionally mispronouncing Roadienko's last name, as Rodensky stated, It's
about time that you Jews from New York learned that
you can't come down bringing your African Americans with you
(04:41):
to upset the customs of the South. Whitfield, of course
didn't use the phrase African American, preferring to use a
racial epithet instead. He further explained that he was giving
the sentence to quote teach him a lesson. All this
for doing something the Supreme Court deemed legal. But back
(05:01):
to nineteen sixty one, things were slightly different. A decade
or so after the first Freedom Riders, the colored people
only in Whites only signs had been removed from the
interstate buses themselves in the wake of the Irene Morgan
versus Commonwealth of Virginia case, but they had not been
removed in bus terminals and rest stops. The Freedom Riders
(05:26):
encountered their first signs only a mere fifty miles south
of Washington, above the restroom doors at a Greyhound stop
in Fredericksburg. It was Danville, Virginia, near the border of
North Carolina, where the riders would encounter their first real resistance,
nothing physically violent, thankfully, just a degrading refusal of service.
After talking to the manager of the rest stop, they'd
(05:47):
get their refreshments and move on, But as the riders
headed further south, the chance of violence only increased. Things
would boil over In rock Hill, South Carolina, freedom writer
and future Congressman John Lewis was met by a mob
of twenty people when he tried to enter the white
waiting room at a rest stop, only after he had
(06:09):
been severely beat at the police officer station there step in.
He had watched the events unfold for quite some time before.
Speaker 5 (06:15):
Taking any action.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Forty eight years later, one of the men who attacked him,
a former klansman who had hurled jackhandles at African Americans
and attended crossburnings, personally apologized for his actions in Lewis's
office on Capitol Hill.
Speaker 6 (06:33):
An unlikely reunion for these two men. Congressman John Lewis
and Elwyn Wilson. They met, if you can call it that,
forty eight years ago, in.
Speaker 7 (06:44):
Very different times, in a blur of angry fists and
proud protest Lewis, then a freedom writer for Doctor King,
arrived at the rock Hill, South Carolina bus depot May ninth,
nineteen sixty one and was pummeled by Wilson, who for
years has been working his way toward this moment.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
I'm sorry for what happened down then, well, that's okay.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
That's all right.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
It's almost forty eight years ago. Yeah, so remember that day. Well,
I never thought that this would happen. It says something about.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
The power of love, the power of grace, and the
power of people to be able to say I'm sorry.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
I feel like I got saved out there.
Speaker 6 (07:39):
One of his buddies, deeply religious, pose the question that
would finally set his soul on a different course.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
He said, if you died right now, do you know
where you would go? I said to Hall.
Speaker 6 (07:53):
And then as Elwyn Wilson watched Barack Obama become president,
something shifted in his heart.
Speaker 5 (08:00):
Vote for him, But I'm glad he's there, and I've prayed.
Speaker 7 (08:04):
For one and what now.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
I want to love people regards of what called.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
And you've been listening to Kirk Higgins, the director of
Content at the Bill of Rights Institute, telling the story
of the Freedom Rides of nineteen sixty one, and the
destination was New Orleans. The starting place was Washington, d C.
There were some bad signs to start fifty miles south
of DC, but they took the form they were manifested,
(08:36):
in the form of a denial of services. As they
headed further southoh South Carolina in particular, that's when things
turned violent. The late Congressman John Lewis was beaten badly
simply trying to use the rest stop facilities. When we
come back more of the Freedom Rides of nineteen sixty one,
(08:57):
here on our American story, and we return to our
(09:40):
American stories and our story on the Freedom Rides of
nineteen sixty one. Telling the story is Kirk Higgins, the
director of content at the Bill of Rights Institute. Let's
return to the story. Take it away, Kirk.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
The Freedom Riders continued onwards, and as they pulled into
Atlanta on Sunday, May fourteenth, they decided to split up
for the next leg of the trip. To Birmingham, Alabama.
It turned out to be a fateful decision. When the
first group reached a stop in Aniston, Alabama, an angry
(10:23):
mob of some two hundred whites surrounded their greyhound bus,
some of them armed with iron bars. They broke windows,
dented the sides, and punctured the tires. Somehow the bus
was able to drive off. It only made it six
miles down the road before the tires went flat. The
mob had followed them. Someone broke the back window and
(10:47):
hurled a fire bomb onto the bus. The bus was
immediately engulfed in thick black smoke, and the freedom Riders
fell to the floor to breathe. Some managed to make
it out of the windows, others tried to dash for
the door, only to find it blocked from the outside.
The mob was out for blood. The sound of a
policeman's gun shot up into the air caused the crowd
(11:10):
to disperse. It was some miracle that all the riders
managed to make it out of the bus alive, and
even more astonishing that they weren't killed once outside. This
wouldn't be the last round of violence those on the
Freedom Ride encounter. The next stop was Birmingham, Alabama, the
heart of the Deep South. The awfulis Eugene Connor, better
(11:38):
known as Bull Connor, paced back and forth in his
office in downtown Birmingham. Just days earlier, he had been
re elected in a landslide to his position as Commissioner
in Public Safety, his sixth term in the position. He'd
held it more or less since before World War II.
His career in politics had started after a stint as
a radio broadcaster for the Birmingham Barons baseball club. Years later,
(12:00):
Willie Mays, who played for the Birmingham Black Barons in
his youth, would remember that he quote was a pretty
good announcer, although I think he used to get too
excited end quote. His career was also built on upholding
the segregation that the Freedom Writers were challenging and the
Supreme Court had illegal. Martin Luther King Junior called to him,
(12:23):
quote a racist who prided himself on knowing how to
handle the African American and keep him in his place.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
You can never quip the budgets if you don't keep
you in them separate. You've got to keep the white
and the black. Sept A Van Washington at Little Bobby
Shops and his brother the Prince. They didn't give anything,
any word.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
If we had some trouble here.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
You've got to keep your white and black separate. He
was later known for using dogs and fire hoses against people,
including children. There would be no police protection when the
Freedom Riders pulled into Trailways bus terminal in Birmingham. Connor's
excuse was that it was Mother's Day. In reality, he
had granted a fifteen minute grace period for an extra
(13:16):
judicial beating upon the riders by members of KKK. As
the riders exited the bus to sit at the all
white counter at the rest stop, mob beat them with fists,
iron pipes, baseball bats, spike chains, and broken coke bottles.
James Peck, one of the few riders who had participated
in the first Freedom Ride in nineteen forty seven, took
the courageous decision to combat them. He stated that quote
(13:40):
they would have to kill him before hurting the other
riders end quote. Peck ended up with life threatening wounds
and required over fifty stitches, all for courageously defined e sagash.
He would later tell a reporter that he endured the
violence to quote show that nonviolence can prevail over violence. Again,
the bus was firebombed. Despite the violence, the Freedom Riders
(14:03):
fully intended to push onward with their journey. Robert Kennedy,
the Attorney General, had even arranged escort for them going
forward into Montgomery, Alabama. But it wasn't the rider's resolve,
but that of the Greyhound bus companies that would falter.
The company refused to allow more of its buses to
be destroyed or to put the lives of its drivers
in danger. Frustrated, the riders made their way to the
(14:26):
Birmingham Airport to fly to their destination of New Orleans.
When they got on the plane, all the passengers would
have to disembark due to a bomb threat. It looked
as if the freedom Rides were over, but a black
student named Diane Nash refused to back down. She feared
that the civil rights movement would face a large setback.
(14:47):
Freedom Rides did not continue. Nash had already made her
mark on the civil rights leading and participating in sit
ins that contributed to the Nashville's lunch counters being desegregated.
Despite the project being suspended by Corps, she managed to
organize another group to continue the trip. They wouldn't get
far the new Freedom Riders were arrested, transported more than
(15:09):
one hundred miles away to Tennessee, and dumped by the
side of the road. But again they were not deterred.
The courageous young people simply drove back to Birmingham and
attempted to board a bus, but the terrified driver refused to.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
Let them up.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
By this point, the Kennedy administration had gotten even more
serious and negotiated a settlement that Alabama and Greyhound officials
would accompany the New Freedom Riders to Montgomery, and state
police cars would protect the bus from any further mob violence.
That should have provided a measure of safety for the
Freedom Riders, but it did. The new bus would depart
(15:50):
Birmingham on May twentieth. Quickly, they'd be traveling ninety miles
per hour out of the city to avoid snipers and
the mob violence that had marred the protests throughout the
Deep South. But as soon as the bus left city limits,
Alabama Highway patrol would leave them to their own devices,
and in Montgomery, another mob awaited them. A young white man,
(16:12):
Jim's Werg, valiantly stepped off first and was dragged down
and beat severely by the mob. Two female riders were
being pummeled, one by a woman swinging a purse at
her head, while the other was punched in the face
by a man. Shouts of kill them out had it
(16:35):
not been for Floyd Mann someone Man was the director
of public safety in Alabama when the Freedom Riders rode
the state, and according to those who knew him, he
was destined from birth to be a legendary lawman. He
was a veteran, having served as a tailgunner on twenty
seven combat missions over Europe in A B seventeen, including
(16:56):
the first daytime raid over Berlin. He had served distinction,
having received the Distinguished Flying Cross and numerous other awards
come Warzett. By the time he was thirty, he had
become chief of police in the sizeable Alabama town of Opelika,
where he dismantled a gambling ring. And while he worked
under Governor Patterson, who vehemently opposed the Riders, he was
(17:18):
a man who believed in the rule of law and through.
When Man received information from a confidential source that the
police in Montgomery planned to be on holiday when the
Riders arrived, he jumped into a patrol car and sped
to the scene. According to an account published in the
Tuscaloosa News, quote, he wheeled into the parking lot, pulled
his revolver out of his gun belt, and placed it
(17:40):
against the temple of the biggest, meanest, slick backed, undershirt
wearing baseball bat holder, who was waiting at the door
of the bus for the freedom riders. He said, quote,
I'll give you folks five minutes to all clear out
of here, or I'll start shooting with this fellow and
we'll take names later for families. That night, Martin Luther
(18:04):
King Junior flew to Montgomery to speak. Protected by a
ring of federal marshals, King addressed a mass rally of
fifteen hundred people at First Baptist Church. He told the assembly,
with his soaring rhetoric, Alabama will have to face the
fact that we are determined to be free. We are
not afraid, and we shall overcome. So in the days ahead,
(18:26):
let us not sink into the quick sands of violence. Rather,
let us stand on the high ground of love and
not injury. Let us continue to be strong spiritual mills
that will wear out many a physical hammer. Two days later,
twenty seven freedom writers finally boarded buses safely and headed
toward New Orleans at the Mississippi border. However, they were
(18:48):
all arrested to take it to jail. Several additional attempts
were made, but all suffered the same faith. Today, the
story of the Freedom Writers lives on as a remarkable
demonstration of bravery in resilience. Their indomitable will won over
the hearts and minds of Americans who had heard about
their fight for equality. A few short years later, Congress
(19:09):
passed the Civil Rights Act. The rule of law would
prevail and African Americans and white Americans could travel as
equals across the nation.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Monty Montgomery. And a special thanks to
Kirk Higgins. He's the senior director of content at the
Bill of Rights Institute. And you can learn more about
their great American History curriculum at Mybri dot org. That's
my Bri dot org. And what a story you heard
(19:45):
about courage and selflessness and pure unadulterated racism. The story
of the Freedom Rides of nineteen sixty one. Here on
our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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