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Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los Angeles

1961 Freedom Riders at Safe House after being rescued from First Baptist Church

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Contents of this path:
3. 1960s Freedom Riders Movement
4. 1961 Freedom riders and members of the National Guard on a bus in the Deep South
6. 1961 Freedom Riders left Union Station in Los Angeles When traveling by air, rail or bus across country on business or pleasure, I always recall the summer of 1961, when the Rides made interstate travel the democratic activity we take for granted. Racial segregation on trains or in bus stations is unthinkable today. But I remember when it was the law or custom in many places. I was raised in New Orleans, and learned early on what segregated life was like as a Negro. And I remember the Freedom Rides. In August 1961, I was one of 11 men and women who boarded a train from Los Angeles to Mississippi. We Freedom Riders — some 400 people across the U.S. — bore witness to our conviction that segregation was illegal. We were disciplined, organized and racially mixed. We rode trains, buses and planes; we sought service at dining facilities, restrooms and waiting rooms. We expected to be incarcerated and knew there could be violence directed against us. But we were committed.
7. 1961 First Freedom Rides from Washington DC to Alabama
9. 1961 Freedom riders rescued from First Baptist Church
10. 1961 Freedom Riders Rest in Church as mob surrounds
11. 1961 From Montgomery, Alabama to Jackson, Mississippi - Freedom Riders put their lives on the line for dignity and equal rights
12. 1961 Safe House in Alabama - Freedom Riders Pray after being rescued
14. 1961- Freedom Riders - Attack in Anniston On Sunday, May 14, 1961—Mother's Day—scores of angry white people blocked a Greyhound bus carrying black and white passengers through rural Alabama. The attackers pelted the vehicle with rocks and bricks, slashed tires, smashed windows with pipes and axes and lobbed a firebomb through a broken window. As smoke and flames filled the bus, the mob barricaded the door. "Burn them alive," somebody cried out. "Fry the goddamn niggers." An exploding fuel tank and warning shots from arriving state troopers forced the rabble back and allowed the riders to escape the inferno. Even then some were pummeled with baseball bats as they fled. A few hours later, black and white passengers on a Trailways bus were beaten bloody after they entered whites-only waiting rooms and restaurants at bus terminals in Birmingham and Anniston, Alabama.