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. .