Freedom Rides 1961

13 volonteers (7 black 6 white) went on a bus journey from From Washington DC to New Orleans. The plan was to ignore the seperate sections for blacks and whites on the bus, they all sat together. Wherever they stopped, thehy ignored the segregating signs in bathrooms, waiting halls and resturants. They all did the opposite of what they were supposed to, like blacks would go to white's only toilettes and so on. James Farmer from CORE was the inspiration for the act, who wanted to test the 1960's banning of segregation in interstate transport. They wanted to start a domino-effect by attracting extremists, thus gain publicity and force federal government to intervene.

In Annistion, Alabama the bus was met by a mob and was fire-bombed. The riders were beaten up. On the second bus, the police tried to force the riders to segregate, but the riders refused. Those who were not hospitalized rode on to Birmingham, Alabama were the police waited for 15 minutes - while local KKK mebers could do whatever they liked with the busses and people on board - before they interrupted the situation. No federal support intervened because Kennedy was afraid for bad publicity and to loose support from southern Democratic senators.

The riders kept on going. In Montgomery they were met and beaten up by KKK, and so was reporters and photographers.