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Fourteen years after the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) attempted to desegregate interstate modes of public transportation, it would again test the South’s compliance with rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court. The May 1961 Freedom Rides tested the 1960 Supreme Court decision in the Boynton v. Virginia case, which extended the Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1946) directive to all interstate transportation facilities, including terminals, waiting rooms, restaurants, and other amenities. The court’s decision made it unconstitutional to racially segregate waiting rooms, restrooms, and lunch counters.

An interracial group of activists from CORE attempted to ride Greyhound and Trailways buses from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, Louisiana, to test the Interstate Commerce Commission’s ban on racially segregated buses and facilities on interstate routes. However, before they reached New Orleans, the Freedom Riders met with violence that caused CORE to terminate the excursion. Refusing to let violence override nonviolence, the Nashville Student Movement played a pivotal role in continuing the Freedom Rides to desegregate interstate transportation and auxiliary facilities. Although not the progenitors of the Freedom Rides of the 1960s, Nashville’s student activists, under the leadership of Diane J. Nash, a member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), became their driving force. On May 4, 1961, CORE sent two buses and an assembly of 13 Freedom Riders (seven black men, three white men, and three white women) on what was supposed to be a two-week trip, traveling through the deep South from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans to test their right to intermingle blacks and whites in the region’s bus stations. The group included John Lewis, a member of the Nashville student movement.

Freedom Riders met a sadistic horde of more than 100 angry whites who brutally beat them.

The interracial group encountered only a few problems during their first week of travel. However, when they reached Anniston, Alabama, on that fateful May 14 in 1961, the Freedom Riders met a sadistic horde of more than 100 angry whites who brutally beat them and fire bombed the bus. In Birmingham, a mob toting iron pipes and other weapons greeted the riders, who were battered, knocked unconscious, and hospitalized. Public Safety Commissioner “Bull” Connor knew that the Freedom Riders were coming and that hostile whites were awaiting their arrival. The following day, a picture of the burning Greyhound bus appeared in national and international news. While the violence garnered widespread attention, it also caused Farmer to terminate the ride.

On May 17, 1961, recruits left Nashville for Birmingham, Alabama. Three days later, they boarded a bus and traveled with a police escort to Montgomery, where the police abandoned them. Left to the mercy of a violent mob, several riders were beaten, causing the Kennedy Administration to call in federal marshals. On May 21 Martin Luther King Jr. flew to Montgomery to support the Freedom Riders. Three days later, 27 Freedom Riders left Montgomery for Jackson, Mississippi. Upon their arrival in Jackson, they were arrested for attempting to use the whites-only facilities. On May 26 the cadre of Freedom Riders were convicted and sent to Parchman Farm Penitentiary. The Nashville students’ single-mindedness to carry on the Freedom Rides had major consequences for the southern Civil Rights Movement. The Freedom Rides continued for the next four months with student activists in the forefront. On September 22, 1961, in response to the Freedom Rides and under pressure from the Kennedy Administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission established regulations eliminating racial segregation in train and bus terminals. These regulations went into effect on November 1, 1961.

Linda T. Wynn

The 1964 Freedom Summer project was designed to draw the nation’s attention to the violent oppression faced by African Americans in Mississippi.