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FREEDOM RIDERS
- Freedom rides were set up by CORE to test whether the desegregation on public transport was happening/being enforced
- First Freedom Ride was in May 1961, James Farmer, National Director of CORE and 12 volunteers left Washington DC by bus to travel to New Orleans down south
- No trouble on first part of journey
- Changed in Alabama
- Bus firebombed on Mothers’ Day May 1961
- As bus burned the mob held the doors shut hoping to burn the riders to death
- Riders Escaped but were viciously beaten by men armed with clubs, bricks and iron pipes
- Highway patrol men stopped the riders from being lynched
- Reached Birmingham, no police protection
- New President forced to intervene – got a promise from the state senator that there would be no more violence, however the riders were arrested for using a whites-only waiting room
- FRs continued
- 27 jailed for 67 days for using whites-only section of bus station
- Membership of CORE doubled to 52K
- The Albany Movement 1961-62 – civil rights activists protested including MLK but failed to end segregation in the town
- KKK attacked the riders
- Robert Kennedy, Attorney General threatened to send in US Marshalls which stopped most of the violence
- September: Interstate Commerce Commission issued a regulation saying bus companies couldn’t use bus stations that were run in a segregated way
- Raised awareness and publicity