PHOTOS: Public Domain or used with permission from Freedom Rider David Fankhauser, PhD I intended to write about some thought provoking articles in The Christian Century, but I clicked on the television to check news and watched the PBS special on the Freedom Riders instead. I was eleven in May, 1961, but remember news broadcast images of the Civil Rights struggle including some of the Freedom Riders. Watching the special last night was both horrifying and inspiring.
I know people who have marched with MLK Jr. in Selma and one who worked with the bus boycott in Montgomery. As a teenager, I joined in protests for the Farm Workers Union and marched in protests against the Viet Nam war. Facing National Guard bayonets on my college campus, I experienced rubbery knees and covered my nose and mouth with wet towels to lessen the effects of tear gas.
None of these actions of mine required the raw courage of those college students who became “The Freedom Riders.” Trained in non-violent resistance, these young people knew they were likely going to face beatings, arrest, and possibly death, yet boarded the buses anyway, intent on calling national attention to the immortality of segregation and the need to change Jim Crow laws.
Seeing adult whites, police, and public officials stand and watch (or participate) students ruthlessly beaten was chilling. White women holding babies calling out encouragement to those doing the violence and governors smiling as they proclaimed the violence was the fault of the out of town “rabble rousers” seemed unbelievable.
I learned more about the Kennedy administration’s reluctant involvement and eventual support of the movement and the Freedom Riders’ meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr. The threat of burning 1500 blacks as they gathered in their church to support the students and to hear MLK Jr. finally forced the governor of Mississippi to declare marshall law.
If you have the opportunity to watch this documentary, do it.
While we can look at this as history, we also must remember that the ignorance and fear that engendered such horrific acts is alive and well in our country and in the world. Racism is not gone, as can been seen in the “code talk” by politicians and pundits (for example, Trump’s questioning of how Obama…who Trump asserted was not a good student…was accepted into Harvard, insinuating affirmative action granted him the opportunity).
Racism is not the only example of hatred and discrimination in our land and across the globe: Homosexuals, transsexuals, women, and the poor are often targets. Actions may not be as blatant as beatings and killings (Though some are. Did you read about the transwoman who was dragged by the hair from a restroom in a MacDonalds and was kicked and beaten?)
Violence today is often done “cleanly” with political policies, job discrimination, and uneven application of the law.
We ow much to the Freedom Riders. We must honor their courage and convictions by acting on the best of our own.
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