Freedom Ride
Freedom Riders ( English for Freedom Ride ) is the name of a form of resistance resulting from the civil rights movement of the United States was born. The so-called Freedom Riders ( Freedom driver ) took part in the abolition of state-sanctioned racial segregation by being in intercity buses in the southern drove to the implementation of the Supreme Court decision (364 US 454 1960) by the Supreme Court on the prohibition of racial segregation in public To check means of transport, restaurants and waiting rooms and to take legal action if necessary.
The first Freedom Ride left Washington, DC on May 4, 1961 for New Orleans . During this trip, the status quo and the compliance of local practice with the law should be checked in order to take legal action if necessary. The trip together of whites and blacks provoked violent protests, gave a boost to the civil rights movement and first made American citizens and later the world aware of the problem. Participants were arrested, in part, for trespassing , unlawful gathering, and violating state and local laws.
The Freedom Riders had committed to nonviolent resistance prior to the ride , but knew they could face arrests and rioting . Between June and September 1961 there were about sixty more trips.
The action received little support from the political leaders; Since President John F. Kennedy relied on the votes of members of Congress from the southern states for his foreign policy program, he avoided actively working on the issue of civil rights. Speaking of the Freedom Riders, Kennedy told civil rights attorney Harris Wofford , “Can't you stop your goddamn friends from getting on those buses? They should call it off. Tell them that! "
The first ride
On May 4, 1961, seven black and six white passengers left Washington DC on Greyhound and Trailways buses. The tactic was to sit mixed with at least one black in the white area at the front. The buses drove through Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia with minor difficulties.
Before Anniston , Alabama , the buses were on May 14 by a mob attacked and put a bus on fire. The mob tried to hold the doors shut to burn the inmates alive. However, when the vehicle tank exploded, the passengers were able to escape from the bus, but were attacked again. Only the warning shots of a Highway Patrol officer prevented the lynching . Freedom Riders who were later admitted to the local hospital were thrown out by hospital staff at 2 a.m. because they feared attacks by the mob. The injured were brought to safety in cars provided by Pastor Fred Shuttlesworth .
When the Trailways buses reached Birmingham, Alabama, they were attacked by members of the Ku Klux Klan . Under the direction and assistance of Police Commissioner Bull Connor , the Freedom Riders were brutally beaten with baseball bats, iron bars and bicycle chains. The white participants in particular were segregated and beaten up.
Since the bus drivers refused to continue the journey or other transports of the Freedom Rider out of fear, the remaining participants wanted to fly to New Orleans . This succeeded after bomb threats and attacks in the airport.
Students continue their journey
Ten students tried to continue the Freedom Ride and drove to Birmingham on May 17, 1961, where they were arrested by Bull Connor. Two days later, more Freedom Riders drove towards Montgomery, Alabama, under attacks by the Ku Klux Klan . The Highway Patrol, present under pressure from the US government, left the convoy on the outskirts, and again the participants were ruthlessly attacked. Here, too, the police present allowed the riots.
On the night of May 21, when the 1,500 sympathetic First Baptist Church of Pastor Ralph Abernathy was attacked, in which Martin Luther King , Jr. gave a speech, Governor John Malcolm Patterson installed the National Guard. The Kennedy administration had threatened to send federal units.
After the Freedom Rider reached Montgomery on May 22nd, they continued towards Mississippi on May 24th . The federal government and the governors of Alabama and Mississippi agreed that the National Guard and State Police should protect the drive, but the federal government would not intervene if participants were arrested for violating segregation laws. However, these arrests violated federal law. On arrival in Jackson , participants, including William Sloane Coffin , were arrested while trying to enter the bus depot.
From June to September 1961, about sixty Freedom Rides took place, with over three hundred arrests in Jackson alone.
Reception and commemoration
Based on the Freedom Ride in the USA, students from the University of Sydney in Australia carried out non-violent actions from February 12 to 26, 1965, which they also called the Freedom Ride , against racial discrimination against Aborigines in remote locations in the state of New South Wales .
The song He Was My Brother of Simon and Garfunkel covers the Freedom Riders.
The Freedom Riders National Monument was built in Anniston .
Movies
- Freedom Riders: Heroes Against Racism . 114-minute documentary film by Stanley Nelson (United States, 2010)
literature
- Carol Ruth Silver: Freedom Rider Diary: Smuggled Notes from Parchman Prison. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson 2017, ISBN 978-1-4968-1314-5 .
- Raymond Arsenault: Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. Oxford University Press, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-1953-2714-4 .
Web links
- Dwayne Mack: Freedom Rides (1961). In: Black Past , July 12, 2007 (English)
- Marian Smith Holmes: The Freedom Riders, Then and Now. In: Smithsonian Magazine , February 2009
Individual evidence
- ^ Robert Dallek: John F. Kennedy. An unfinished life . DVA, Munich 2006 ISBN 978-3-421-04233-0 , p. 334.
- ^ A b Terry Gross: Get On the Bus: The Freedom Riders of 1961 . National Public Radio , January 12, 2006, accessed May 21, 2016.
- ↑ a b c d Bruce Hartford: Civil Rights Movement Timeline. Civil Rights Movement , accessed April 10, 2009 .