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New Riders Leave Washington D.C.
Inspired by the Journey of Reconciliation of 1949 and in order to ignite America's heart against segregation, a group of twelve riders was chosen and sent off from Washington D.C. en route to New Orleans, Louisiana by James Farmer, the director of CORE. With this they hoped to test a Virginia Supreme Court order declaring segregation of public transportation unlawful. Aware of the possibility of public revolt, the amalgated group split into two buses for the trip: a Greyhound and a Trailways. -
Trip Through the Carolinas
The buses travel on, stopping every so often in cities for rest. To further show off their act against segregation, the riders traded bathrooms: white going in black's bathrooms, and blacks in whites'. The trip through Alabama and North Carolina remained fairly uneventful. However, through Sourth Carolina, a group of white boys attacked a black rider at a rest stop in Rock Hill. This marked the first attack of the 1961 freedom rides. -
Anniston Attack
The riders passed through Georgia without issue and arrived in Anniston, Alabama on the 14th. However, upon arrival, the Greyhound bus was mauled by a mob of over 200 white supremacists. The group hurled rocks and other metal objects at them, and mutilated the bus’s tires so they were unable to drive any further than a few miles before their final attack, when the group firebombed the bus and left it completely destroyed and no longer usable. -
Nash's Nashville Riders
Outraged at the news of the attacks in Anniston and Birmingham, Diane Nash, a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, formed a new group of riders to join up with the previous ones. The two groups joined together and rode through Birmingham without harm, and continued to travel up through toward Montgomery. -
The Montgomery Mob
As the two groups of freedom riders pulled into the station in Montgomery, a mob of people of all ages swarmed around the buses, attacking the passengers with makeshift weapons like baseball bats and tire irons. As they marched off the buses, at least two of the riders, John Lewis and Jim Zwerg, were injured severly, and others were even beaten unconcious. -
King's Montgomery Rally
News of the event spread through television broadcasts showing footage of the beatings, and soon enough the entire nation knew what was happening within that very day. Martin Luther King Jr. flew down and rallied the folk in a church to meet, and, as the night went on, a large group of white surpremists surrounded the church and prevented those inside from leaving without being attacked, but King was able to contact the governor to call in the National Guard and get rid of the mob. -
Mass Arrest at Jackson Station
Fully intent on continuing in their revolutionary journey, the riders hopped back on the buses and rode all the way down through Mississippi. At this point, government officials were fed up with the uprising and protected them on their way down. However, upon arrival at the Jackson bus station, police arrested and detained the freedom riders, and they were sentenced to 60 days in the state penitentiary. -
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Additional Rides and Revolts
Even though the main groups of 1961 freedom riders were arrested, new groups continued to dock at the same station throughout the rest of that summer. By the end of the year, over 300 people had been detained. Although the groups never made it to their original destination of New Orleans, the mass violence that resulted from the peace-seeking rides forced the Kennedy administration to raise the priority of civil rights of black citizens, and eventually led to the Interstate Commerce Commission.
