"We were prepared for the possibility of death" : Freedom Riders in the South, 1961.
2010
E185.61 .W4
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Title
"We were prepared for the possibility of death" : Freedom Riders in the South, 1961.
Publication Details
Farmington Hills, Mich. : Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, 2010.
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (4,285 images).
Call Number
E185.61 .W4
Summary
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated South to test the United States Supreme Court decision in Boynton v. Virginia. Boynton had outlawed racial segregation in the restaurants and waiting rooms in terminals serving buses that crossed state lines. Five years prior to the Boynton ruling, the Interstate Commerce Commission had issued a ruling in Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company that had explicitly denounced the Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine of separate but equal in interstate bus travel, but the ICC had failed to enforce its own ruling, and thus Jim Crow travel laws remained in force throughout the South. The Freedom Riders set out to challenge this status quo by riding various forms of public transportation in the South to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation. The Freedom Rides, and the violent reactions they provoked, bolstered the credibility of the Civil Rights Movement and called national attention to the violent disregard for the law that was used to enforce segregation in the southern United States. Riders were arrested for trespassing, unlawful assembly, and violating state and local Jim Crow laws, along with other alleged offenses.
Note
Date range of documents: 1961.
Reproduction of the originals from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Library.
Reproduction of the originals from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Library.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description
Online resource; title from HTML title page (viewed July 7, 2014).
Added Corporate Author
United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Series
Archives unbound.
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