Freedom Riders

Although the United States Supreme Court had ruled the segregation of buses unconstitutional in 1946 and 1960, by 1961, civil rights activists were frustrated by the lack of enforcement of these rulings in Southern states. The Freedom Riders were groups of people, both African-American and white, who protested by boarding interstate buses in groups to travel into the South. They faced arrest under local laws for a variety of offenses, while also in danger of attack from white mobs. Calling attention to the lack of adherence to a Supreme Court verdict and the violent enforcement of Jim Crow Laws (by both police and civilian mobs) throughout the South, the Freedom Riders inspired Civil Rights movements throughout the country, especially the rural South.