The Freedom Rides started on May 4, 1961, after the first bus left Washington D.C. with the plan to reach New Orleans, Louisiana by May 17. The Rides were organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The Freedom Rides continued after CORE ended them due to the extreme hostility and anger shown to the Riders along their routes. Afterwards, civil rights activist, Diane Nash, got together 10 student volunteers from Nashville, Tennessee, to continue the Freedom Rides where the CORE volunteers had left off. More and more volunteers joined the Rides. They continued the Freedom Rides until the Interstate Commerce Commission enforced new policies that made the South desegregate transportation facilities, starting in November of 1961. By 1962, almost all public transportation in the South had been desegregated.
The intent of the Freedom Rides was to test the Supreme Court’s ruling in Boynton v. Virginia, which officially proclaimed segregation of bus and rail stations unconstitutional. The Freedom Riders walked through and used white sitting and waiting rooms and attempted to use white restrooms. Despite the continued attacks against the Riders, they wanted to continue on so as to not send a negative message to the segregationists in the South: that violence would make the Riders back down from their mission for total equality. The Freedom Riders also showed everyone the government’s reluctance to protect civil rights, along with civil rights activists. The Riders brought national and international attention to the Freedom Rides after the violence in Montgomery, which caused even more people to volunteer to participate in the Rides. Without the Freedom Riders, racial equality on public transportation may have come to the US much later than it had.
The Freedom Riders were brutally attacked in Anniston, Birmingham, and Montgomery, all in Alabama. Once the Riders reached Anniston on May 14, the Greyhound bus had its tires slashed while being blocked by a large crowd of angry whites. Then the bus was firebombed by the same crowd once the tires blew out. As the Riders exited the bus, they were harshly beaten by the angry whites. When the second Trailways bus reached the bus station in Birmingham on the same day, it was boarded by whites who beat the Riders and forced the blacks into the back. A white mob viciously attacked the Riders there with weapons such as baseball bats, metal pipes, and chains. When a third bus reached Montgomery, Alabama on May 20, 1961, a massive white crowd of more than 1,000 people attacked the Riders when they exited the bus, and they targeted the white Riders for especially brutal beatings, like in Birmingham and Anniston. Some of the Riders had to wait at a bus stop to be taken to the hospital since black cab drivers couldn’t drive whites and white taxi drivers refused to drive any Freedom Riders. The next group of Freedom Riders were also arrested in Jackson, Mississippi and were sentenced 60 days in the state penitentiary.
Even though they represented the law, the local police forces did nothing to stop the beatings of the Freedom Riders. Pressure from the White House forced Greyhound to provide a driver for the Rides since no bus service wanted to take up the unpredictable and dangerous task, due to the intense hostility shown in previous Rides. On the way to Montgomery, the Kennedy administration gave the bus an escort of Alabama State Highway Patrolmen to protect them from the KKK and possible snipers on the way to Alabama. The National Guard also played a part in protecting the Freedom Riders. After the large attack on the Freedom Riders in Montgomery, whites rioted outside of a First Baptist Church where Martin Luther King Jr. was speaking to a crowd of over 1,000 people. After MLK called the White House for assistance, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy pronounced martial law in the city, and sent 600 Federal Marshals and the National Guard to Montgomery, in an attempt to calm things down.
The Freedom Rides made a big impact on other movements like the Selma movement and Freedom’s Summer. In the Selma movement and Freedom's Summer, protesters fought for the voting rights of African Americans. Both movements didn't want African Americans to be separated, just like how the Freedom Riders didn't want to be separated on buses. The success of the Freedom Rides helped influence these two movements. The Selma movement and Freedom's Summer may not have existed if there were no Freedom Rides.
Former Freedom Rider, John Lewis, is now in his 12th term in the U.S. House of Representatives. He joined the Freedom Rides because he wanted an opportunity to end racial discrimination and segregation. For four years of his young life, he witnessed racial discrimination and segregation in the South, and he always wanted to do something about it. The Freedom Rides gave him that opportunity. In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he said that social activism and his time on the Freedom Rides led him to a career in politics. He plans on serving in the House of Representatives as long as the voters in the fifth district of Georgia will allow. He doesn't plan on retiring.