Freedom Rides During the civil rights movement, African Americans fought legal segregation through violence and nonviolence because they no longer wanted to live in an unequal world filled with segregation. Jim Crow laws took away from the freedom that African Americans had sought for, “separate but equal” formed discrimination. Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized freedom rides in 1961 that took the country by storm. Freedom riders fought legal racial segregations through nonviolence by traveling on buses from north to south. Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded at the University of Chicago in 1942. The group was made up of mainly white and middle class civil rights activist. Their goal was to make a change through peace
…show more content…
Farmer was the first black national director of the organization (“Congress of Racial Equality”). He was able to lead the organization into something larger than they have ever done before by organizing the Freedom Rides. The Freedom Rides was a group of people called the Freedom Riders who went onto buses and traveled from the North to the South across the country. James Farmer created this campaign because he wanted “to create a crisis so that the federal government would be compelled to enforce the law” (Holmes). Freedom riders traveled from Washington D.C. to Mississippi on mainly Greyhound buses. They were on their way to face what awaited them down …show more content…
After five days, their hunger strike was already proving to be successful and were moved to Parchman Penitentiary (Fankhauser). While in Parchman, they sang freedom songs which many had gospel roots. They sang loud, proud, and often and the guards would tell them to shut up but that did not stop them. Thinking that it’d stop them, the guards slowly started stripping the prisoners starting with toothbrushes, bibles, and then eventually mattresses (Fankhauser). They had to sleep on the steel plates and window screens removed with bugs flying in, but that did not stop them from their singing. They were determined to protest as long and as much as they could with nothing stopping
Farmer was the first black national director of the organization (“Congress of Racial Equality”). He was able to lead the organization into something larger than they have ever done before by organizing the Freedom Rides. The Freedom Rides was a group of people called the Freedom Riders who went onto buses and traveled from the North to the South across the country. James Farmer created this campaign because he wanted “to create a crisis so that the federal government would be compelled to enforce the law” (Holmes). Freedom riders traveled from Washington D.C. to Mississippi on mainly Greyhound buses. They were on their way to face what awaited them down …show more content…
After five days, their hunger strike was already proving to be successful and were moved to Parchman Penitentiary (Fankhauser). While in Parchman, they sang freedom songs which many had gospel roots. They sang loud, proud, and often and the guards would tell them to shut up but that did not stop them. Thinking that it’d stop them, the guards slowly started stripping the prisoners starting with toothbrushes, bibles, and then eventually mattresses (Fankhauser). They had to sleep on the steel plates and window screens removed with bugs flying in, but that did not stop them from their singing. They were determined to protest as long and as much as they could with nothing stopping