Freedom Riders
1961 bus protesters
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses through the American South in 1961 to challenge segregation.
Black and white riders sat together and used whites-only facilities at bus stations, provoking violent attacks that drew national attention.
The term now evokes direct-action protest against racial injustice: The Freedom Riders forced the federal government to enforce desegregation laws.
- Rosa ParksCivil rights icon
- bus boycottOrganized refusal to ride
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integration · Greyhound · Jim Crow laws · Deep South · Martin Luther King Jr. · activists · John Lewis · racial equality · Bloody Sunday · interstate travel · mob violence · sit-ins · Black Power · nonviolent · voter registration · protests · Birmingham campaign · Black
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Freedom Riderssegregationists
Advocates for racial division
Ku Klux Klan · white supremacists · George Wallace · lynch mobs · Dixiecrats
Freedom Riderssilent majority
Presumed moderate, publicly mute multitude
gradualists · bystanders · armchair critics · letter-writers