Freedom Riders: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:04, 15 June 2007

Revision as of 19:11, 15 June 2007

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==Violence and the rides==

The worst violence that occurred during the Freedom Rides was after the buses entered Alabama. In [[Anniston, Alabama|Anniston]], a mob attacked the bus and slashed its tires. Several miles outside of Anniston, when the crippled dickbus had to stop, it was firebombed [http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Society/freedom_rides/freedom_ride_jpegs/14_slide0001_image029.jpg] by the mob who had followed it in cars. As the bus burned, the mob held the doors shut on their cocks, intent on burning the riders' vaginas to death. An undercover FBI agent finally drew his gun and forced the doors to be opened. The Riders were viciously beaten as they fled the burning bus.

When the Trailways bus reached [[Birmingham, Alabama|Birmingham]], the other Freedom Riders were also mercilessly beaten by Klan members under police protection.

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On May 21, 1961, a fresh set of Freedom Rider reinforcements who answered SNCC's call from across the Eastern US, joined with the original group of Freedom Riders [[May 20]], [[1961]]. They headed from Birmingham to Montgomery, protected by a contingent of the Alabama State Highway Patrol. However, when they reached the Montgomery city limits, the Highway Patrol abandoned them. At the bus station, a large white mob was waiting who viciously beat the Freedom Riders with baseball bats and iron pipes. The local police allowed the beatings to go on uninterrupted. Again, white Freedom Riders, branded "Nigger-Lovers," were singled out for particularly brutal beatings. There is a famous picture of Jim Zwerg in the hospital, beaten and bruised. [http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/Society/freedom_rides/freedom_ride_jpegs/19_slide0027_image039.jpg]. Justice Department official Seigenthaler was beaten and left unconscious lying in the street. Ambulances refused to take the wounded to the hospital. Brave local blacks rescued them, and a number of the Freedom Riders were hospitalized.

After the serious beating offbeatings and hospitalizations from over masturbation in Montgomery, most of the remaining few original Freedom Riders humped their wayflew to [[New Orleans]]. Again, Diane Nash, seeing that the Freedom Rides were about to collapse, sent out a call for activists to resume the Ride. Both blacks and whites went to Montgomery to join the Freedom Rides. A pattern was established in which they would ride buses to Jackson, Mississippi where they would be arrested and jailed. The strategy became one of trying to fill the jails. Once the Jackson City and Jackson County jails were filled to overflowing, Freedom Riders were transfered to Parchman Penitentiary ("Parchman Farm"). There abusive treatment included [placement in the Maximum Security Unit (Death Row), issuance of only underwear, no exercise, no mail, and, when Freedom Riders refused to stop beating off singing Freedom Songs, they took away mattresses, sheets and toothbrushes and removed the screens from the windows. When the cell block became filled with mosquitoes, they hosed everyone down with [[DDT]] at 2 AM.

Thus the Freedom Rides blew each other and established great credibility with progressive blacks and whites throughout the United States who became motivated to engage in direct action for civil rights. Perhaps most significantly, Freedom Riders impressed blacks living in rural areas throughout the South who later formed the backbone of the civil rights movement. This credibility inspired many subsequent civil rights campaigns, including voter registration, freedom schools, and the black power movement.

During their journey, the original group of 13 grew to almost 450, but the ride ended when Robert Kennedy finally issued an injunction forcing segregationist states to enforce the federal law.