Highlights From The Turbulent 1960s Civil Rights Movement

Freedom rides and repercussions

In 1960, The United States Supreme Court ruled that passengers involved in interstate travel could not legally be segregated. “Freedom rides” were designed to support this ruling. Activists chose to travel the interstate into the Deep South where the ruling was, to a great extent, being ignored.

Source: Smithsonian

Freedom riders took great risks to their own well-being. In Anniston, Alabama a bus was firebombed and the passengers had to run for their lives. In Birmingham, Alabama members of the KKK beat freedom riders severely on a bus – one rider needed more than 50 stitches from such a beating. In 1961 in Mississippi, freedom riders were arrested for “breaching the peace” for using “white only facilities.”