Freedom Rides, USA, 1961

Contents1

Depth Study Description P.3Outline of Lessons, Civil Rights definition P.3Lesson Activities PP.4-8Activity Page P.9Assessment (essay) P.10Essay Key Words P.11Supporting Documents for essay PP.12-16Bibliography P.17

President Lyndon .B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act 1964

Depth Study Two (2)

2

The U.S Civil Rights Movement and its influence on Australia

Outlining the Freedom Rides in the U.S, how they inspired civil rights campaigners in Australia, and how they became a turning point in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ struggle for rights and freedoms.

Outline of Lessons

The focus of the next three (3) lessons will be The U.S Civil Rights movement and its influence on Australia.

The planning for these three lessons are:

Lesson 1: documentary (30 min) and supporting activities

Lesson 2: documentary (30 min) and supporting activities

Lesson 3: Influence outside The United States; Freedom Rides Australia Resources: Booklet, Freedom Rides (DVC)

Freedom Rides and Civil Rights

This protest took place in The United States of America in 1961 where African American people were fighting for their civil rights. One definition of ‘civil rights’ that is particularly relevant to Americans is:

“The rights belonging to an individual by virtue of citizenship, especially the fundamental freedoms and privileges guaranteed by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and by subsequent acts of Congress, including civil liberties, due process, equal protection of the laws, and freedom from discrimination”.

Documentary support and class activities

3

Bus Bombed In 1961 the U.S. civil rights movement was in its infancy. The federal government had declared it illegal to segregate public interstate travel facilities, but the law was widely ignored. Throughout the south bus and train stations remained segregated.Requests for federal government enforcement of its own laws were ignored. President John Kennedy and Attorney-General Robert Kennedy failed to act.In May 1961, The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) decided to tackle the issue head on. They planned to travel by bus from Washington DC to New Orleans. Riding through the heart of the south on Greyhound and Trailways buses an integrated group of civil rights activists would confront segregation. This would in fact be a way to ‘Challenge’ the government to do what was right.

Typically blacks would enter white only sections and whites would enter "coloured" areas. Initially there was only minor resistance, but on 15 May 1961a white mob forced the first of two buses carrying Freedom Riders off the road in a remote area of Alabama. The bus was fire bombed, the Freedom Riders pulled of the bus and beaten.

Baseball bats and bicycle chains

The second bus headed for Birmingham where they were beaten with baseball bats, iron pipes and bicycle chains. James Peck required more than fifty stitches in his head. The local police let the beatings continue, but when they were over they arrested the Freedom Riders.

4

The photograph shows members of the KKK beating a black bystander George Webb in the Birmingham Trailways bus station, May 14, 1961. The man with his back to the camera (centre right) is FBI undercover agent Gary Thomas Rowe.

Public safety commissioner Bull Conner claimed that he posted no officers at the bus depot because of the holiday. It later emerged that the FBI knew of the planned attack and that the local police stayed away on purpose.

Alabama governor John Patterson offered no apologies, explaining, "When you go somewhere looking for trouble, you usually find it . . . . You just can't guarantee the safety of a fool and that's what these folks are, just fools."

The bus company, however, did not want to risk losing another bus to a bombing, and its drivers, who were all white, did not want to risk their lives.

In Australia four year later the driver of the Freedom Riders' bus resigned for similar reasons. 

Lesson 1-Questions from Part 1 of this documentary:

1. In what ways could the Freedom Rides be seen as being ‘non-violent’?___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. In what way could the Freedom Rides be said to be ‘courting violence’?___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. The suggestion was made, prior to the ‘Rides’, that if violence did occur, this could be to the benefit of the Freedom Ride movement. How would you account for this suggestion? Explain.____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5

4. This movement challenged the government, but it also challenged the people of the South. Explain what you believe this means using example from the documentary.____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lesson 2-Questions from Part 2 of this documentary:

1. What were the Freedom Riders trying to accomplish?_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. What were opponents' responses to the Freedom Rides?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. What was the sequence of responses by the federal government? Why did Robert Kennedy want the Freedom Rides to stop?

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. “Don’t start something you can’t finish”, explain this with-in the context of this protest.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

6

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lesson 3

In groups, students should do the reading below, discuss and note their feelings on this with regard to: What impact did the American Freedom Rides have on the Australian Freedom Rides? What are the similarities and differences? Follow up with class discussion.

Australian Freedom Rides

In 1964 a huge university student demonstration was held outside the US Consulate in Sydney supporting the Civil Rights Bill which was before Congress in America. This demonstration was publicised by the newspapers and the TV. However the demonstration was heavily criticised. Many people thought that the students should be focusing on the discrimination within Australia. In response to this criticism a new organisation was formed, Student Action for Aborigines - SAFA. Charles Perkins, one of the first Aboriginal students at Sydney University and an Aboriginal activist who became the president of this organisation. The students, inspired by the United States freedom rides of 1961, planned the Australian freedom rides. The aim was to draw attention to the racial discrimination suffered by Aboriginal Australians. They were routinely denied access to pools, picture theatres and RSL clubs and were forced to live in appalling conditions know as shanty towns or fringe dwellings. The students successfully publicised the upcoming trip in newspapers such as The Australian and The Sun. About 30 students set out from Sydney in The first towns visited were Wellington and Gulargambone. Here the freedom riders met with the Aboriginal people of the towns and conducted surveys.

7

It was clear to the freedom riders that discrimination in the towns was rife; the Aboriginal population was not allowed into pubs and cafes. However, lacking support from the Aboriginal people of the town due to fears of stirring up trouble and making life even more difficult for the Aboriginal peoples of the town, the students moved on. At the next stop, Walgett, a huge demonstration was held outside the RSL. The RSL refused to admit Aboriginal ex-servicemen. A Herald reporter who by chance was in town on the day was able to report on the events. Students made banners such as ‘good enough for Tobruk why not Walgett RSL?’. The peaceful demonstration received a fierce reaction from the town. Upon leaving the town a local farmer used his truck to run the bus off the road. This became the headline story for the Sydney papers the next day.At the next town, Moree, six more members of the press joined the riders. One of the issues at Moree was that Aboriginal people were denied access to the local pool. Protests were held outside the Council Chambers and at the pool, where attempts were made to admit Aboriginal children. After some time of heated exchanges the pool manager gave in and allowed entry to the Aboriginal children. The students left the town on a high thinking the ban had been broken. Further along the journey the students heard news that this was not the case. Upon returning to Moree press interest was growing and the second protest was covered by from television crews such as Seven Days and the BBC. The second demonstration at Moree turned violent, Gerry Stone, a reporter for The Australian covered the story.

MOREE, Saturday. - Mob violence exploded here today as student freedom riders were attacked by a crowd crazed with race hate. White women spat on girl students and screamed filthy words as the students tried to win Aboriginal children admission to the town baths.Several people were arrested and the town's mayor, Alderman William Lloyd, pitched into the battle, grabbing students by the scruff of their necks and hurling them out of the way.Throughout the fighting a barrage of eggs and rotten fruit rained on the students.Mr Jim Spigelman, a 19-year-old student from Maroubra, was smacked to the ground while the 500 strong crowd roared its approval.

Sunday Mirror, 21 February, 1965

Similarities Differences

8

Additional Comments:

Assessment-Essay

“I can assure you that every degree of mind and spirit that I possess will be devoted to the long-range interests of the United States and to the cause of freedom around the world”. John F. Kennedy, Acceptance Speech; Hyannis Armory, Hyannis, Massachusetts, November 9, 1960

The 'Freedom Rides' were part of campaign by both African American and non-African American people, who sought to gain for all American citizens, what was rightfully theirs: their full rights as citizens of The United States of America; they sought to be treated in the same was as every other citizen of that country.

9

These people were testing laws and the resolve of their recently elected president; John Fitzgerald 'Jack' Kennedy to confirm his promise of 'Freedom'

Essay Question

With reference to the documents provided, your own research and personal knowledge, EXAMINE, EVALUATE, and TRACE the motivation, execution and impact of the civil rights movement and more specifically, the 1961Freedom Rides. Word Count-1000 wordsIntroduction:The introduction should state your main idea, contention or answer in an interesting way, answering the question as well as providing an indication of where the essay will develop from here. Listing the main arguments that are to follow in the order that you intent to make them.

Paragraph 1: Motivation (what were the motivating factors for the Freedom Ride of 1961? Consider the legal aspects and the documents you have been supplied with)This is the first major argument in support of your answer or contention, including evidence in the form of quotes and examples from the text to support your arguments. Make sure that the paragraph uses the key words and concepts from the essay question and that they topic sentence or main idea of this paragraph is clearly supporting your contention.

Paragraph 2: Execution (This paragraph looks at the Civil Rights Movement and the way in which it sought to achieve its purpose, specifically in this case, The Freedom Rides)Structure as above.

Paragraph 3: Impact (what was the impact of the Civil Rights Movement and specifically, The Freedom Rides on both The United States and other countries?Structure as above.

Conclusion:The conclusion should draw together your arguments in and interesting way, reiterating your arguments and referring again to the question and demonstrating just how you have answered it.

Essay key words

EXAMINE:

Present in depth and investigate the implications.

EVALUATE:

Make an appraisal or the worth of something, in the light of its apparent truth; include your personal opinion.

10

TRACE:

Identify the connection between one thing and another either in a developmental sense over a period of time, or else in a cause-and-effect sense.

Supporting Documents-Essay

1961: The Freedom RidersFifty years ago, 13 people began a journey through the Deep South—and forever changed the nationBy Merrill Perlman

11

On May 4, 1961, 13 people bound for New Orleans boarded two public buses in Washington, D.C.

Calling themselves the Freedom Riders, the interracial group—southern and northern men and women, many of them in their 20s—sought to test federal laws intended to help desegregate the Deep South.

For the next few weeks, the Freedom Riders travelled from one southern city to the next, trying to integrate "whites only" waiting rooms and lunch counters—and enduring arrests, beatings, and fire bombings along the way. By the time they headed home, some with black eyes and broken bones, the attention they had brought to just how widespread segregation still was in the South had energized the civil rights movement. And their actions culminated in landmark civil rights laws a few years later.

The Freedom Rides were "a key step in a whole chain of events that led to the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Bill," says Brian Daugherity, who teaches history at Virginia Commonwealth University. They were "a motivating influence on a whole generation of young people."

In 1961, almost a century after the Civil War, segregation was still a way of life in the South. Changes had come steadily, but slowly: President Harry S. Truman integrated the armed forces after World War II, in 1948. And in the 1954 landmark case Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" schools for blacks and whites were inherently unequal and unconstitutional.

But despite two Supreme Court rulings outlawing segregation in interstate rail and bus terminals as far back as 1946, many stations in the South maintained separate lunch counters, restrooms, and water fountains. States and cities in the South found ways to flout federal rulings through local custom and "Jim Crow" segregation laws.

The idea behind the Freedom Rides, sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a civil rights group, was simple: At each segregated bus terminal, the interracial group would seek service in the whites-only area. If served, they would consider that place in compliance with federal law. If they were arrested for violating local law, they would go to jail without resisting. "And if there is violence, we are willing to accept that violence without responding in kind," said CORE's leader, James Farmer.

But they expected—even hoped—that things wouldn't go smoothly: As Farmer put it, they were counting on "the racists of the South to create a crisis, so that the federal government would be compelled to enforce federal law."

Ku Klux Klan

As the Freedom Riders traveled through Virginia and North and South Carolina, they were served at most bus stations—even if the white waitresses sneered while pouring coffee or the black waitresses whispered to just let things be to avoid trouble. And if the counters and restrooms were again segregated once the Freedom Riders left, at least they had broken the taboos.

The real trouble started on day 11 as the buses arrived in Alabama, where the white-supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan had deep roots. The Freedom Riders could expect little help from police or other officials, since many were themselves K.K.K. members.

Outside Anniston, Alabama, racial slurs and rocks rained on one of the buses before someone threw a firebomb into it, with the Freedom Riders were beaten as they fled the bus.

"When I got off the bus, a man came up to me, and I'm coughing and strangling," Hank Thomas recalled years later. "He said, 'Boy, you all right?' And I nodded my head. And the next thing I knew, I was on the ground. He had hit me with part of a baseball bat."

On their way to Birmingham, Alabama, whose police commissioner, Eugene "Bull" Connor, was an avowed segregationist, the Freedom Riders on the second bus were beaten by a K.K.K. mob. After being beaten again by a white mob in Birmingham, the Freedom Riders were accused of inciting the violence. Few whites in the mob were arrested.

The press reports coming out of the South riveted the country. Television was still relatively young, and it magnified the impact. "When the bus arrived, the toughs grabbed the passengers into alleys and corridors, pounding them with pipes, with key rings, and with fists," Howard K. Smith of ABC reported from Birmingham.

12

Robert F. Kennedy, the U.S. Attorney General and brother of President John F. Kennedy, asked Governor John Patterson of Alabama to assure the safety of the Freedom Riders. Patterson, a segregationist, refused.

The Kennedy administration was in an awkward position. The President said he supported civil rights, but he needed the cooperation of Southern politicians. At the same time, he also needed to show that federal law trumps local law. In addition, the U.S. was in the midst of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and the President wanted to showcase U.S. freedoms to the world. The violence in the South was embarrassing.

Kennedy's Response

As a sign of support, Robert Kennedy sent John Seigenthaler, a member of his staff, to accompany the Freedom Riders from Birmingham to New Orleans, but the bus drivers there were not willing to take them. Delayed by mobs and bomb threats, the CORE Freedom Riders ended their portion of the Rides on May 15, when they boarded a plane to New Orleans—their original destination—with Seigenthaler.

The next day, an interracial group of Tennessee college students, fresh from a series of nonviolent sit-ins that had desegregated lunch counters in Nashville, took over and Seigenthaler ordered Greyhound to find a driver.

Though younger than some of the CORE Freedom Riders (in addition to college students, the new group included people as young as 13), the Nashville Student Movement shared their goals: "Some people were involved in the movement because they wanted to make things better for their grandchildren," said Bernard Lafayette, one of the first student Freedom Riders. "I wanted to make things better so my grandparents would be able to enjoy this thing."

In Montgomery—the site of the bus boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr. six years earlier—whites armed with chains, bats, and other weapons descended, seriously injuring several of the new Freedom Riders.

They beat reporters and smashed their cameras. Even Seigenthaler was knocked unconscious. "You could see baseball bats; you could see hammers; you could see pieces of chain," Freedom Rider Jim Zwerg, who was beaten nearly to death, recalled years later.

The Freedom Riders and their supporters—a group of 1,500, including Martin Luther King Jr.—took shelter in a church, singing and praying as more than 3,000 whites outside threw rocks and firebombs. Governor Patterson placed Montgomery under martial law and sent in Alabama National Guardsmen, who "protected" the people in the church by blocking them from leaving at bayonet point. Finally, after a night of tense negotiations between state and federal troops, the people safely evacuated the church.

Ahead lay Mississippi. Freedom Riders arriving in Jackson, which The Times called "the modern capital of segregation," were arrested and charged with breaching the peace.

By the end of the summer, more than 300 Freedom Riders had been arrested in Mississippi. They were housed in overcrowded jails, or at the notorious Parchman prison farm, where guards deliberately kept the windows shut during the stifling Mississippi summer, when temperatures can reach 110°F. Some of them ended up spending more than a month in jail.

Willing to Be Beaten & Jailed

The federal government was stymied by the activists' willingness to be beaten, arrested, and jailed, and their unwillingness to pause for a "cooling-off" period. Federal attempts to enforce interstate desegregation dragged on, caught between protesters' deep hatred of segregation and the deep hatred that many Southerners harbored toward blacks.

And so the Freedom Rides continued. One of the more tangible signs of progress came on June 1: At the Montgomery Greyhound bus terminal, The Times reported, the signs for "colored" and "white" were removed, leaving only "the dusty outlines of the metal letters and stubs of the rivets that held them in place."

The Freedom Rides began with just 13 well-trained people in May 1961, but by the time they ended in the fall, they had attracted nearly 600 people, some of whom decided spontaneously to ride a bus or a train into the South to protest segregation.

Others would be inspired to get involved in the Albany Movement, a student-led voting rights protest in Georgia in the fall of 1961, and Freedom Summer, a similar movement in Mississippi in 1964 that was marked by the high-

13

profile murders of three civil rights workers. By directly confronting discriminatory policies in the South, the Freedom Riders and the civil rights activists who preceded and followed shook up a complacent nation and forced Washington to respond.

Indeed, in 1964, the sweeping federal Civil Rights Act was passed, outlawing segregation and discrimination against blacks nationwide. And the following year, the Voting Rights Act was passed, eliminating legal obstacles to black voter registration.

The Freedom Riders "made a decision that they were ready to die for the movement—and that was something you hadn't seen before," says Clayborne Carson, a professor of history at Stanford University in California. "They were able to force Kennedy to pay attention. He couldn't ignore it."

(The New York Times Upfront, Vol. 143, January 10, 2011) 

___________________________________________________________________

Transcript of 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868)

AMENDMENT XIV

Section 1.All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Civil Rights Act (1964)

In a nationally televised address on June 6, 1963, President John F. Kennedy urged the nation to take action toward guaranteeing equal treatment of every American regardless of race. Soon after, Kennedy proposed that Congress consider civil rights legislation that would address voting rights, public accommodations, school desegregation, non-discrimination in federally assisted programs, and more.

Despite Kennedy’s assassination in November of 1963, his proposal culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson just a few hours after House approval on July 2, 1964. The act outlawed segregation in businesses such as theaters, restaurants, and hotels. It banned discriminatory practices in employment and ended segregation in public places such as swimming pools, libraries, and public schools.

Transcript of Civil Rights Act (1964)

14

An Act

To enforce the constitutional right to vote, to confer jurisdiction upon the district courts of the United States to provide injunctive relief against discrimination in public accommodations, to authorize the Attorney General to institute suits to protect constitutional rights in public facilities and public education, to extend the Commission on Civil Rights, to prevent discrimination in federally assisted programs, to establish a Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That this Act may be cited as the "Civil Rights Act of 1964".

____________________________________________________

Boynton V’s Virginia 1960

Petitioner: Bruce Boynton

Respondent: Commonwealth of Virginia

Petitioner's Claim: That arresting a black interstate bus passenger for refusing to leave a whites-only section of a bus station restaurant violated the Interstate Commerce Act and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Chief Lawyer for Petitioner: Thurgood Marshall

Chief Lawyer for Respondent: Walter E. Rogers

Justices for the Court: William J. Brennan, Jr., Tom C. Clark, William O. Douglas, Felix Frankfurter, John Marshall Harlan II, Potter Stewart, Chief Justice Earl Warren

Justices Dissenting: Hugo L. Black, Charles E. Whittaker

Date of Decision: December 5, 1960

Decision: Ruled in favour of Boynton by finding that restaurant facilities in bus terminals that primarily exist to serve interstate bus passengers cannot discriminate based on race according to the Interstate Commerce Act.

Significance: The decision supporting federal government actions in desegregating certain public facilities paved the way for further civil rights activism. Resistance to the ruling by many Southerners led to the Freedom Rides on interstate buses by young activists the following summer. The Rides in addition to other protest activities the next two years led to the 1964 Civil Rights Act banning racial discrimination in all public facilities.

Businesses known as "common carriers" are transportation companies that advertise to the public to carry passengers for a fee. States regulate carriers that operate solely within their borders, but the

15

federal government through authority in the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution regulate carriers involved in interstate (traveling from one state to another) or foreign travel.

To regulate various aspects of business between states Congress passed the landmark Interstate Commerce Act in 1887 and amended it through later years. As stated in Section 203, the act applied to "all vehicles . . . together with all facilities and property operated or controlled by any such carrier or carriers, and used in the transportation of passengers or property in interstate or foreign commerce." Further, Section 216(d) of Part II of the act states,

It shall be unlawful for any common carrier [using a] motor vehicle engaged in interstate . . . commerce to make, give, or cause any undue or unreasonable preference [favorite choice] or advantage to any particular person . . . in any respect whatsoever; or to subject any particular person . . . to any unjust discrimination [treating individuals in similar situations differently] or any unjust or unreasonable prejudice [bias] or disadvantage in any respect whatsoever. . .

Based on the act, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Mitchell v. United States (1941) that if a railroad provides dining cars, then passengers must be treated equally by the dining car service. Later in Henderson v. United States (1950) the Court further affirmed that service to passengers in railroad dining cars could not be separated according to race (racial segregation) by curtains or even signs.

Bibliography

(The New York Times Upfront, Vol. 143, January 10, 2011) 

http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/upfront/features/index.asp?article=f011011_riders

Transcript of the XIV Amendment of ‘The United States Constitution’, http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=43&page=transcript

The Civil Rights Act 1964, Ourdocuments.com http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=97

16

E-notes, Boynton V’s Virginia

http://www.enotes.com/boynton-v-virginia-reference/boynton-v-virginia

Making a Difference, Democracy, Citizenship and Law

http://lrrpublic.cli.det.nsw.edu.au/lrrSecure/Sites/LRRView/11633/documents/part2.pdf

17