Freedom Riders

• Freedom Riders, (a group of black and white Americans) started out from Washington, DC on two buses


  4 May Thirteen
• The campaign organisers were CORE and the SCLC
• Their aim was to show that desegregation of bus station facilities was not happening
• SNCC organised ten Riders to bus from Nashville, Tennessee, to Birmingham, Alabama


  17 May
• No the journey, so the Riders stopped in Birmingham where a threatening crowd of segregationists confronted them
• The first bus reached Anniston, Alabama and was attacked by over 100 KKK members


  15 May
• Someone threw a firebomb into the bus, but the passengers managed to escape before the bus exploded
• Riders on the second bus were also attacked and beaten
• In the end, all the Riders were rescued
• A police escort accompanied a new group of Freedom Riders travelling from Montgomery to Jackson, Mississippi

  24 May
• When they arrived in Jackson, the Riders were arrested and the federal government did not protect them
• Police escorted the Freedom Riders bus to just outside Montgomery, Alabama, then left the Riders to defend themselves against a white mob at the bus station


  20 May
• They attacked and beat the Riders
• The federal government threatened to use federal officers to enforce desegregation if states continued to refuse to desegregate bus station facilities


  1 Nov
• The government wanted an end to the violence and the Freedom Rides
• So Southern states began to desegregate bus facilities and the Freedom Rides were no longer needed
• Throughout the summer months there were 60 Freedom Rides
• Over 300 Riders were jailed
• Many were assaulted by police while in custody