50 years after the Freedom Riders

A half-century ago, the Freedom Riders rode buses from Washington to the Deep South to force integration on a reluctant society, encountering violence and resistance. Today, Jim Crow segregation is gone, but the barriers they fought exist in different ways.

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1961

Freedom Riders visit the bus station in downtown Montgomery, Ala.

/ AP

May 14, 1961

Passengers stand outside as a Freedom Ride Greyhound bus burns in Anniston, Ala., after being firebombed.

Joseph Postiglione / For the Anniston Star

April 13, 2011

Albert Sykes, right, sits on a panel of youth leaders during the Jackson 2000 conference, a community discussion in Jackson, Miss., to promote racial harmony and reconciliation, as the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides approaches.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

April 13, 2011

From left, Edith Smith, Dot M. Smith, Betty Kent and Lois Rogers check out a Freedom Riders exhibit at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, Miss. When the riders arrived in Jackson and attempted to use the "whites only" restrooms and lunch counters, they were arrested and charged with breach of peace and refusal to obey a police officer.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

April 14, 2011

Hank Thomas, left, and Lew Zuchman, two of the 13 original Freedom Riders, are shown outside the bus station where Thomas and about 300 others were arrested in Jackson, Miss. The two have been planning a Freedom Riders reunion in Jackson.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

April 13, 2011

Hezekiah Watkins, shown with grandson Mason Watkins, started his affiliation with the Freedom Riders when he was arrested at the age of 13 alongside about 300 others in Jackson, Miss.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

April 13, 2011

Dana Larkin stands in the hallways of the once all-white Murrah High School in Jackson, Miss. When Larkin began school there in the late 1960s, it was all-white. By the time she graduated, the school was two-thirds black. As time has passed, most white parents have pulled their children from public schools, leaving the public school system 98 percent black and creating concerns about resegregation.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

April 13, 2011

Temcula Robinson, left, and Rashard Anderson are waited on by restaurant owner Gwin Wyatt at Bodega in Jackson, Miss. Since 1960, Jackson’s population has been transformed from roughly one-third black to three-quarters black.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

April 14, 2011

D.J. Brooks, 25, and Cecil Lyons, 19, play pool at the Electric Cowboy in Jackson, Miss. Some in Jackson say they see major differences in race relations in the younger generations, with more young adults having friends of different races.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

April 14, 2011

A fully integrated and mixed crowd at the Electric Cowboy signifies how U.S. race relations have evolved in Jackson, Miss.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

April 18, 2011

Charlie Brand works on the the Freedom Rides Museum in Montgomery, Ala., as the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides approaches.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

April 18, 2011

The First Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., played an important role in the history of the Freedom Riders. In 1961, when the Freedom Riders were holding a meeting there, a white mob surrounded and attacked the church.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

April 17, 2011

Howard Davis Jr. stands in the First Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. In 1961, a white mob surrounded and attacked the church while the Freedom Riders were holding a meeting there. Davis, who was 17 at the time, was inside but escaped unharmed.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

April 17, 2011

The First Baptist Church choir sings in Montgomery, Ala. In 1961, when the Freedom Riders were holding a meeting in the church, a white mob surrounded and attacked it.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

April 19, 2011

Georgia Calhoun, 81, has been working to get the city of Anniston, Ala., to formally recognize its racist history and build a memorial marking such events as the 1961 Freedom Riders bus firebombing. "It's just history that needs to be told, as far as I am concerned," Calhoun said. "We have to shed light on the past. Roaches are going to run in the dark."

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

April 18, 2011

Joseph Giri painted a mural in the alley alongside the old Greyhound bus station in Anniston, Ala. On Mother’s Day 1961, a Freedom Riders bus was firebombed in Anniston.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

April 18, 2011

Bernard Emerson, shown in his home in Anniston, Ala., witnessed the burning of a Freedom Riders bus outside his home.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

May 14, 1961

Passengers inspect luggage after the Freedom Ride Greyhound bus burning in Anniston, Ala.

Joseph Postiglione / For the Anniston Star

May 14, 1961

A fireman extinguishes a Freedom Ride bus after it was firebombed in Anniston, Ala.

Joseph Postiglione / For The Anniston Star

April 13, 2011

Mug shots of some of the Freedom Riders in Jackson, Miss. Segregationist city leaders in Jackson had the Freedom Riders arrested en masse. Most were imprisoned all summer in the Mississippi state penitentiary.

Jahi Chikwendiu / The Washington Post

May 14, 1961

An unidentified white man sits in front of a Greyhound bus to prevent it from leaving the station with a load of Freedom Riders testing bus station segregation in Anniston, Ala., as other white men mill around station. The bus was stopped by a flat tire and surrounded by a white crowd outside Anniston, and burned a short time later. The passengers got out without serious injury.

/ AP

May 15, 1961

The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, center, and Freedom Riders discuss plans at the Birmingham, Ala., Greyhound terminal, after drivers refused to carry them any farther. Later, the riders caught a plane out of Birmingham to New Orleans. Surrounding Shuttlesworth, clockwise from left: Ed Blankenheim, kneeling, Charles Person, Ike Reynolds, James Peck, the Rev. Benjamin Cox and two unidentified Freedom Riders.

/ AP

1961

Freedom Riders are arrested. The riders adopted a strategy of trying to pack the prisons, sending more waves of riders south until jails had no room to hold them.

/ AP

May 20, 1961

Three Freedom Riders catch a nap in the Birmingham, Ala., bus station after they were thwarted several times in attempts to board a bus to Montgomery, Ala. From left are Susan Hermann, Etta Simpson and Frederick Leonard. All attended college in Nashville.

Horace Cort / AP

May 21, 1961

Jim Zwerg, a Freedom Rider, recuperates in a hospital in Montgomery, Ala., after he was beaten by a mob at a bus station. Zwerg, then 21, suffered cuts and bruises and lost several teeth in the attack.

Horace Cort / AP

May 24, 1961

A new bus load of Freedom Riders, including four white college professors and three black students, arrives in Montgomery, Ala., under the protection of police and the National Guard.

Perry Aycock / AP

June 2, 1961

Three unidentified white men leave the "colored waiting room" at Trailways bus station in Jackson, Miss., where they sat in a desegregation attempt. It was the first time whites had used a black waiting room in the Freedom Riders' assault upon Mississippi's segregation laws.

/ AP

1961

Alabama state trooper cars line the street in front of the bus station in downtown Montgomery to provide security for a group of Freedom Riders leaving the station.

/ AP

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