Freedom Riders Research Paper

Why were the Freedom Riders important? They created a way to show racist people in the south that they were equal, it showed the importance becoming an equal and not a separated nation. They began the Freedom Rides to celebrate ¨ Brown vs. the board of education,¨ but it became an essential piece of the civil rights movement. The Freedom Rides were mainly organized by the Congress of Racial Equality; they recreated the trips as they had done before in “1946 when the case of Morgan v. Virginia declared that segregated buses were unconstitutional.” These extraordinary people were truly hated in the deep south because they tried using white-only bathrooms and diners, and many southerners persecuted and got them arrested because they didn't

On May 14th, the greyhound bus arrived and there were 200 white people waiting to attack the bus and the Freedom Riders. This caused the bus driver to not stop in the terminal, and continue straight with the mob of people were following the bus. As the bus continued, the cars of angry people followed, but the tires on the bus were wearing out. They busted, and the mob started attacking the bus. One man threw a bomb on the bus, and the people on the bus fortunately escaped. Unfortunately, they escaped only to be beaten up by the mob of people outside. Sadly, the same thing happened to the second bus when it arrived in Birmingham, Alabama. With the police knowing what happened in Anniston, the bus had no police awaiting for them in the terminal. The Freedom Riders were left to fend for themselves. Later, they asked the police why was there no police representation and they were told that no one was working because it was Mother’s Day. Both incidents appeared in national news papers, and it showed the burning buses and the bloody people beaten senseless. This caused the the freedom riders to get angry and wanted to do more rides to the

Once the news spread about the greyhound buses, the Congress of Racial Equality couldn't find a driver to take the Freedom Riders anywhere. During that time, Robert Kennedy and the governor, John Paterson, of Alabama came to an agreement that every bus would be escorted by federal police to secure the safety of the driver and the people. On May 20th of 1961, a bus left for Montgomery, Alabama and right before the bus arrived to the terminal, the police escort left it alone. When the bus arrived, there was a large, angry mob of white people waiting with baseball bats and other objects. It was so chaotic that General Attorney Kennedy had to send 600 federal Marshals to restore order. The next day Martin Luther King Jr. held a service in a church to support the Freedom Rides, but outside there was a huge, angry mob. It became so chaotic that MLK called Robert Kennedy to send help. He sent marshals who used tear gas to separate the mob