Freedom Riders Protesting segregation

in Interstate Travel

Traveling from D.C. to New Orleans

May 14-buses split in Alabama

Buses firebombed in Anniston

Birmingham-the police were given the day off by Governor George Wallace

When you go looking for trouble you usually find it…You just can guarantee the safety of a fool and that’s what these people are…fools.

King described Birmingham as the “most racist city in the US”

Nicknamed “Bombingham” Since 1957 over 50 cross

burnings and 18 bombings Police Commissioner

Eugene “Bull” Connor arrests 2200 over 5 weeks

Protest w/ Children Fire Hoses, Electric Cattle

Prods, Attack Dogs

We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home; but are we to say to the world, and, much more importantly, for each other, that this is a land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettos, no master race, except with respect to Negroes?

August 28, 1963

Over 250,000 people in attendance

Helps pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964