Freedom Rides Research Paper

The first freedom ride happened on may 4th 1961. The freedom riders intended to test the supreme court decision in boyton v. Virginia in 1960. Which had declared segregation in interstate transport systems like bus and train stations including the buses and trains unconstitutional. They got a lot of jail terms which got more volunteers for the freedom rides. More often than not if one rider left another one joined and it kept repeating over and over again. Not only that but it caused more publicity and inspired more freedom rides. On may 14, mothers day a lot of angry white people blocked off a greyhound bus carrying black and white passengers through rural Alabama. The white passengers threw rocks and bricks, and sticks and broke windows with stuff like axes and pipes and then they threw a fire bomb through a broken window and the barricaded the door so they could not get out of the bus, but shots from the police and other people got them to move out of the way, but as soon as the freedom riders got out of the …show more content…
"we had mostly trouble, then it turned into a struggle halfway across alabam and that hound broke down and left us all stranded in downtown birmingham."- chuck berry. One freedom rider once said "If not us then who? If not now then when? Will someone else's children have to risk their lives instead of ours. And his name was john Lewis and he was respected through out all the freedom riders he was even mentioned in Marten Luther kings speech. Some of the freedom riders weren't even out of high school and some were just in college and some left college just to join this civil rights movement. People all over would read or see this on the news and were ether against it (manly in the south) or would agree with it.Or some people would be neutral or not care. Some people got beat up so badly during the protesting that the their quit were hospitalized or