Freedom Riders

May 4 – December 10, 1961 · Southern United States (Birmingham)

Civil rights activists rode buses into the segregated South to challenge non-enforcement of Supreme Court rulings against bus segregation. The first left Washington, D.C. on 4 May 1961; riders faced white mobs with police cooperation and arrest under Jim Crow laws. The CORE- and SNCC-organized rides drew national attention to Southern defiance of federal law and bolstered the movement.

On the map Contemporaries