According to Farmer, some of this role-playing became “all too realistic.” The sessions proved effective, and other civil rights organizations adopted similar training methods.
#Freedom riders how to
Through role-playing, Freedom Riders learned how to prepare for conflict.ĬORE prepared riders to turn the other cheek during hostile situations with “ intense role-playing sessions.” Activists would berate trainees at simulated lunch counters or bus terminals to see how they’d react and then offer feedback. But unlike the first group, the Freedom Riders’s destinations were in the deepest parts of the Jim Crow South. Like the riders in 1947, the Freedom Riders of 1961 were Black and white activists who would travel on interstate buses across the South, testing the region’s compliance with the earlier court decisions. Having been a conscientious objector during World War II, “as a pacifist, I was concerned with finding nonviolent solutions to violent conflict situations domestically,” Farmer told NPR in 1985. James Farmer, Jr., CORE’s co-founder and national director, organized the first Freedom Rides early in 1961. The Freedom Rides of 1961 were based on principles of nonviolence.Ī vintage postcard shows the Birmingham, Alabama, Greyhound station. Their itineraries ended in North Carolina, where many participants were arrested. Their Journey of Reconciliation began on April 9, 1947, and protested southern states' illegal segregation. Virginia case, a civil rights organization called the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) sent 16 of its members-eight Black and eight white-on southbound bus rides out of Washington, D.C. When it became clear the Supreme Court’s orders weren’t being followed after the Morgan v. CORE’s Journey of Reconciliation in 1947 was a prelude to the Freedom Rides. But both rulings were widely ignored below the Mason-Dixon line, prompting civil rights activists to draw attention to the states’ continuing segregation. By a 7-2 margin, the justices ruled that facilities meant to serve passengers traveling across state lines, like bus station bathrooms and cafés, must be integrated. Another Supreme Court case, 1960’s Boynton v.
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Supreme Court declared segregation on interstate transport was unconstitutional.
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The Freedom Riders tested states’ compliance with two Supreme Court rulings. To mark the 60th anniversary of their nonviolent campaign, here are some essential facts about the Freedom Riders and their mission. By doing so, they secured what historian Ray Arsenault called the civil rights movement’s “first unambiguous victory”. The Freedom Riders were a brave group of more than 400 civil rights activists, many of whom were just teenagers, who put their lives on the line to dismantle segregated busing in 1961.