CRM-FH+-+Script

“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.” Martin Luther King spoke these words in a speech in Tennesee in 1968. It seems that wheels, or rather buses, had a lot more to do with the civil rights movement than you might think. Seven years before Martin Luther King gave that speech, the Freedom Rides were taking place. The first began on May 4th, 1961. Thirteen great men - seven black and six white - left for Washington D.C. on two public buses heading for the Deep South. The goal was to test the Supreme Court’s ruling in Boynton v. Virginia, which had proclaimed that segregation in interstate buses and rail stations was unconstitutional. The mission was rather simple - ride a bus. The part that was troublesome - ignoring the Jim Crow laws. Even though these Jim Crow laws did not match up with the Supreme Court decisions, racists still tried to uphold them.

Freedom Riders already knew they would be up against hatred as they traveled. Some were arrested in Virgina. As they went further South, the more violence the faced. They were met with Beatings in South Carolina. Then, in Anniston, Alabama, an angry mob attacked the bus. The Ku Klux Klan firebombed the bus while the police didn’t do a thing. The Riders were denied medical attention, and decided to fly to New Orleans, where they would be attending a civil rights rally.

Then, a second Freedom Ride was staged. Bus drivers across the nation were too afraid to ride any freedom riders, but one was found, under order of John F. Kennedy. JFK also told the governors of Alabama and Mississippi that they were under order to protect the freedom riders - and if they didn’t, Federal troops would be called in. Violence occured in Montgomery, Alabama. Then the riders were arrested in Jackson, Mississippi.

Then, on May 29th, 1961, John F. Kennedy and his administration ordered the Interstate Commerce Commission to obey the 1955 Supreme Court ruling. The Freedom Riders are national heroes. They brought important media attention to the cruelties of the Deep South, as well as assisted in bringing the Jim Crow laws to justice.