May 7, 2024 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Kirk Higgins, the Senior Director of Content at the Bill of Rights Institute, tells the story of one of the most harrowing bus journeys of all time, the courageous men and women who went on it, and the mob that attacked them for wanting to ride as equals to each other.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Let's get into the story.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Take it away, Kirk, May fourth, nineteen sixty one. A
warm spring day at our nation's capital, Washington, d C.
(00:58):
Buses are scattered throughout down as school groups and tourists
floed in to see our nations 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 committed
(01:19):
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 Farr 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 4 (02:49):
If you can never whip these budgets, if they don't
keep you in them, shephard, You've got to keep the
white the black par.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
I've draw the line in the fantastic Government before the
feat of Turning, and I say segregation now, segregation to
Mara and segregation forever.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
The bus pulled out with 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
(03:34):
Morgan versus Commonwealth of Virginia, which ruled that Virginia's law
enforcing segregation on interstate buses, greyhounds, and the like 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 Roadienko, 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 le 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
(06:10):
been severely beat at the police officer station there step in.
He had watched the events unfold for quite some time
before taking any action. 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 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
(06:57):
was pummeled by Wilson, who for years has been working
his way toward this moment.
Speaker 7 (07:03):
I'm sorry for what happened down man.
Speaker 8 (07:07):
Well, it's okay, that's all right. It's almost forty eight
years ago. Yeah, so remember that day. Well, I never
thought that this would happened.
Speaker 7 (07:26):
It says something about the.
Speaker 8 (07:27):
Power of love, the power of grace, and the power
of people to be able to say I'm sorry.
Speaker 7 (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 7 (07:45):
He said, if you died right now, do you know
where he 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 7 (08:00):
Vote for him, But I'm glad he's there, and I've
prayed for one and what now. I want to love
people regards of what colled.
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.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Was New Orleans. The starting place was Washington, d C.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
There were some bad signs to start fifty miles south
of DC, but they took the form they were manifested,
in the form of a denial of services. As they
headed further south, though 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
(08:54):
we come back more of the Freedom Rides of nineteen
sixty one, here on our American story, and we return
(09:40):
to our American stories and our story on the Freedom Rides.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Of nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Telling the story is Kirk Higgins, the director of content
at the Bill of Rights Institute.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Let's return to the story. Take it away, Kirk.
Speaker 3 (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 out of 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 4 (12:31):
You can never quip these budgets if they don't keep
you in them separate. You've got to keep the white
the black. A fan Washington at the little Bobby shops
and the brother of the Prince. They ain't give anything
any word if we had some trouble here.
Speaker 3 (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 Chill. There would be no police protection when the
Freedom Riders pulled into Trailways bus terminal in Birmingham. Connor's
excuse was that of his 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 riders 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 bob 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 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 one
(15:10):
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
let them up. By this point, the Kennedy administration had
gotten even more serious and negotiated a settlement that Alabama
(15:30):
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 Birmingham on May twentieth. Quickly, they'd be
(15:53):
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 Jim's Werg valiantly stepped off first
(16:15):
and was dragged down and beat severely by the mob.
Two female riders were being pumbled, 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 right out. Had it not been for Floyd Mann
(16:37):
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 the first daytime raid over Berlin.
(16:59):
He had served with 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 a man who believed
in the rule of law and through. When Man received
(17:22):
information from a confidential source that the police in Montgomery
planned beyond 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 against the temple of the biggest, meanest,
slick backed, undershirt wearing baseball battholder, who was waiting at
(17:46):
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
King Junior flew to Montgomery to speak. Protected by a
(18:08):
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,
let us not sink into the quick sands of violence. Rather,
(18:30):
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 riters finally boarded buses safely and headed
toward New Orleans. At the Mississippi border. However, they were
all arrested to take it to jail. Several additional attempts
(18:51):
were made, but all suffered the same faith. Today, the
story of the Freedom Writers lives on as a remarkable
demonstration of Braverty resilience. Their indomitable will won over the
hearts and minds of Americans who had heard about their
fight for equality.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
A few short years.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Later, Congress 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.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Let's get into the story.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Take it away, Kirk, May fourth, nineteen sixty one. A
warm spring day at our nation's capital, Washington, d C.
(00:58):
Buses are scattered throughout down as school groups and tourists
floed in to see our nations 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 committed
(01:19):
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 Farr 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 4 (02:49):
If you can never whip these budgets, if they don't
keep you in them, shephard, You've got to keep the
white the black par.
Speaker 5 (02:58):
I've draw the line in the fantastic Government before the
feat of Turning, and I say segregation now, segregation to
Mara and segregation forever.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
The bus pulled out with 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
(03:34):
Morgan versus Commonwealth of Virginia, which ruled that Virginia's law
enforcing segregation on interstate buses, greyhounds, and the like 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 Roadienko, 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 le 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
(06:10):
been severely beat at the police officer station there step in.
He had watched the events unfold for quite some time
before taking any action. 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 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
(06:57):
was pummeled by Wilson, who for years has been working
his way toward this moment.
Speaker 7 (07:03):
I'm sorry for what happened down man.
Speaker 8 (07:07):
Well, it's okay, that's all right. It's almost forty eight
years ago. Yeah, so remember that day. Well, I never
thought that this would happened.
Speaker 7 (07:26):
It says something about the.
Speaker 8 (07:27):
Power of love, the power of grace, and the power
of people to be able to say I'm sorry.
Speaker 7 (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 7 (07:45):
He said, if you died right now, do you know
where he 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 7 (08:00):
Vote for him, But I'm glad he's there, and I've
prayed for one and what now. I want to love
people regards of what colled.
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.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Was New Orleans. The starting place was Washington, d C.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
There were some bad signs to start fifty miles south
of DC, but they took the form they were manifested,
in the form of a denial of services. As they
headed further south, though 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
(08:54):
we come back more of the Freedom Rides of nineteen
sixty one, here on our American story, and we return
(09:40):
to our American stories and our story on the Freedom Rides.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Of nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Telling the story is Kirk Higgins, the director of content
at the Bill of Rights Institute.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Let's return to the story. Take it away, Kirk.
Speaker 3 (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 out of 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 4 (12:31):
You can never quip these budgets if they don't keep
you in them separate. You've got to keep the white
the black. A fan Washington at the little Bobby shops
and the brother of the Prince. They ain't give anything
any word if we had some trouble here.
Speaker 3 (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 Chill. There would be no police protection when the
Freedom Riders pulled into Trailways bus terminal in Birmingham. Connor's
excuse was that of his 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 riders 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 bob 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 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 one
(15:10):
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
let them up. By this point, the Kennedy administration had
gotten even more serious and negotiated a settlement that Alabama
(15:30):
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 Birmingham on May twentieth. Quickly, they'd be
(15:53):
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 Jim's Werg valiantly stepped off first
(16:15):
and was dragged down and beat severely by the mob.
Two female riders were being pumbled, 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 right out. Had it not been for Floyd Mann
(16:37):
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 the first daytime raid over Berlin.
(16:59):
He had served with 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 a man who believed
in the rule of law and through. When Man received
(17:22):
information from a confidential source that the police in Montgomery
planned beyond 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 against the temple of the biggest, meanest,
slick backed, undershirt wearing baseball battholder, who was waiting at
(17:46):
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
King Junior flew to Montgomery to speak. Protected by a
(18:08):
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,
let us not sink into the quick sands of violence. Rather,
(18:30):
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 riters finally boarded buses safely and headed
toward New Orleans. At the Mississippi border. However, they were
all arrested to take it to jail. Several additional attempts
(18:51):
were made, but all suffered the same faith. Today, the
story of the Freedom Writers lives on as a remarkable
demonstration of Braverty resilience. Their indomitable will won over the
hearts and minds of Americans who had heard about their
fight for equality.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
A few short years.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Later, Congress 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
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