The Freedom Riders were people across the country in 1961 who boarded buses, trains and planes bound for Southern states to protest the outdated Jim Crow laws and noncompliance with a U.S. Supreme Court decision prohibiting segregation. Many of these people were college students.
The Freedom Riders used methods of nonviolent protest, as trained by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose leadership during the Montgomery Bus Boycott helped bring to an end to the Alabama city’s segregation policies in the mid-1950s.
They gathered for dinner in Washington, D.C., the evening before the first ride on May 4, 1961 and began their protest the next morning. Blacks and whites sat together on the bus, and when the bus stopped, they entered “restricted” areas — areas designated for either blacks or whites.
They met little resistance to their protests until the bus reached Rockford, N.C., where an enraged mob began beating the Freedom Riders. It was the first of many beatings the riders would receive along the way.
At President John F. Kennedy’s request, the Freedom Riders were escorted safely to Jackson, Miss., at which point they were arrested and jailed. At Parchman prison, conditions worsened, but the riders responded to their harsh treatment by singing freedom songs.

— Jessica Richelderfer