Remembering the Freedom Rides 50 years later

Remembering the Freedom Rides 50 years later

by Larry Bleiberg, articles.latimes.com
April 24th 2011

As the bus leaves Atlanta, Dennis Climpson is eager for conversation. He wants to talk about college football this Sunday morning, but I have a question for him. "Have you ever heard of the Freedom Rides?" I ask.

Fifty years ago next month, a group of 15 passengers travels the same route. Like us, they were blacks and whites sitting together on buses, then a violation of segregation laws. Climpson, 48, says he hasn't heard of the protests, but he's intrigued. As Interstate 20 passes by, he turns to his smartphone to check Wikipedia.

In 1961, Charles Person was 18 and the youngest of the Freedom Riders, who were traveling on two buses to New Orleans from Washington, D.C. The Georgia native still remembers crossing into Alabama that Mother's Day. "There was tension. It was kind of eerie."

Person expected to be harassed and roughed up as the group tested compliance with federal integration laws, but he didn't imagine much worse. "This was broad daylight," he says.

Later that day, members of the Ku Klux Klan would set fire to one bus and beat riders on the other with pipes, chains and bats. Over the next week, the world would watch as the Kennedy administration struggled to protect the protesters.

The racial violence shocked — and changed — America.

Today you can retrace the Freedom Rides easily by car or bus. The Alabama cities on the route are marking the anniversary with murals, exhibits and a new museum. It's a leisurely tour of the Deep South, where you'll find gracious hosts, good food and stark reminders of a not-so-distant past.

Climpson, who is bound for Jackson, Miss., to start a new truck-driving job, can't believe what he's reading on his phone.

"Anniston, Ala.?" he asks, pointing to the screen. "I thought that was a quiet town."

Half a century ago, when the Greyhound bus carrying some of the Freedom Riders pulled into Anniston, in the foothills of the Appalachians, a crowd awaited. Klan members pummeled the vehicle and slashed its tires. It limped away 20 minutes later, and a convoy of cars followed. Six miles later, the bus stopped with a flat.

Bernard Emerson still lives on a hill overlooking the spot, which now bears a historic marker. Someone had tossed burning rags through a smashed bus window. "The smoke was getting pretty thick," he recalls. "One lady was coming out of the window. She got her foot caught, and she was kind of hanging there."



Original Page: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/24/travel/la-tr-freedomriders-20110424

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