12/2/2023 0 Comments Freedom ridersThe Freedom Riders were finally rescued by a convoy from the Black community in Birmingham organized by Civil Rights Leader, Rev. A member of the crowd tossed a firebomb through a broken window, others tried to block the doors, forcing the Freedom Riders to escape through a window. The bus left Anniston but was soon abandoned by its police escort just six miles out of town on Route 202, where it was again surrounded by an angry white mob. A mob organized by the Ku Klux Klan attacked the bus, smashing windows, slashing tires and denting the outside of the bus. When the Greyhound bus arrived in Anniston on that afternoon they found the terminal locked. The two buses (one a Greyhound bus and one a Trailways bus) that set out from Washington, DC arrived in Alabama on May 14, 1961, where they were met by members of the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist mobs. Lewis, the legendary civil rights activist and a member of the United States House of Representatives for Georgia's 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death in 2020, was beaten up and imprisoned for 40 days while participating in the Freedom Rides. Among the original group of freedom riders was John Lewis (1940-2020). Organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), two groups of riders left Washington, DC on May 4, 1961. The Freedom Riders planned to integrate bus terminal waiting rooms, restaurants, and other services at bus stops throughout the South, where local Jim Crow laws preserved racial segregation in defiance of federal law. Virginia that segregation of interstate transportation facilities, including bus terminals, was unconstitutional. In 1961, civil rights activists set out to test a 1960 Supreme Court decision in Boynton v. We knew our lives could be threatened, but we had made up our minds not to turn back." "We were determined not to let any act of violence keep us from our goal.
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