Case Study 5-Freedom Rides and Marches May 1961

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Case Study 5-Freedom Rides and Marches May 1961: First Freedom Ride……….GREYHOUND Bus run by Trailways Company….bound for Mississippi and Alabama James Farmer and Bayard Rustin organized a journey of reconciliation integrating the buses throughout the south. 1947 May 14, 1961….Mother’s Day………….Anniston, Alabama……Freedom Riders were attacked, beaten and fire-bombed Eli Cowling….white trooper….saved the day and protected the African Americans Eugene Bull Connor-police chief ……..was very bigoted and did not protect the freedom Riders when the integrated interstate buses arrived in Montgomery, Alabama. Freedom Rides unified the people from the north and the south and led the way for the Freedom Marches. Birmingham according to Dr. Martin Luther King was the most segregated city in the south. April 12, 1963….King put in jail for marching and put in solitary confinement for three days. King wrote a letter to the white ministers from the Birmingham jail which became one of the most important documents in the history of the Civil Rights Movement. May 2, 1963…..Young people joined the marchers and firefighters turned the hoses on them at Bull Connor’s command. Police dogs tore a t their arms and legs. The MEDIA brought the violence and horror to the attention of the nation. Mid-May of 1963 Birmingham accepted desegregation after President Kennedy sent federal troops to Birmingham. June 10, 1963…President Kennedy demanded that Congress pass new civil rights laws.\June 12, 1963 Medgar Evers was murdered August 28, 1963…..250,000 people marched in Washington from around the country from the Washington Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial. MLK delivered his famous I Have A Dream speech. November 22, 1963…President John F, Kennedy assassinated July 2, 1964….President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Bill into law. .

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REFLECTION REFLECTION the Freedom Riders of the Civil Rights Movement
REFLECTION REFLECTION The Freedom Riders of the Civil Rights Movement “I’m taking a trip on the Greyhound bus line, I’m riding the front seat to New Orleans this time. Hallelujah I’m a travelin’, hallelujah ain’t it fine, Hallelujah I’m a travelin’ down freedom’s main line.” This reflection is based on the PBS documentary, “Freedom Riders,” which is a production of The American Experience. To watch the film, go to: http://to.pbs.org/1VbeNVm. SUMMARY OF THE FILM From May to November 1961, over 400 Americans, both black and white, witnessed the power of nonviolent activism for civil rights. The Freedom Riders were opposing the racist Jim Crow laws of the South by riding bus lines from Washington, D.C., down through the Deep South. These Freedom Rides were organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Despite the violence, threats, and extraor- dinary racism they faced, people of conscience, both black and white, Northern and Southern, rich and poor, old and young, carried out the Freedom Rides as a testimony to the basic truth all Americans hold: that the government must protect the constitutional rights of its people. Finally, on September 22, 1961, segregation on the bus lines ended. This was arguably the movement that changed the force and effectiveness of the Civil Rights Movement as a whole and set the stage for other organized movements like the Selma to Montgomery March and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. This documentary is based on the book Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Equality by Raymond Arsenault (http://bit.ly/1Vbn4sy).
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Introduction
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