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Freedom Riders: 1961 And The Struggle For Racial Justice

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Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice Raymond Arsenault Mr. Murray 374003 Raymond Arsenault had written a good book about the Freedom Riders and how it had all started to where it all ended. After reading the Abridged edition of the Freedom Riders, it provided myself an idea of what the main reason of the book was written for. In my readings, the book’s reason was to show how a small group with a big plan went beyond dangerous accusations to show the world how unconstitutional it was for interstate bus terminals to be color separated that needed to be addressed and drastic measures had to be taken for people, even the Kennedy administration, to make a change once and for all. It had all began when a group of thirteen …show more content…

International attention was now upon the Freedom Riders, following the widespread violence, CORE couldn’t find a bus driver to transport the group, then later decided to abandon the Freedom Riders. Arsenault gave hope when writing how Diane Nash, an activist of Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee (SNCC), had organized a group of ten students from Nashville, Tennessee to continue the ride, as the US Attorney General and brother of President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy had spoken with Governor John Patterson of Alabama and bus companies to secure a driver and state protection for the continuing Freedom Riders; the ride had continued with the police escort from Birmingham on May 20. Arsenault showed inspiration in his book when Attorney General Kennedy had sent in six hundred federal marshals to the city of Montgomery, Alabama, where police had left the station before the riders arrived, as the riders were being beaten with bats and clubs. Arsenault was giving the readers hope for the Freedom

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