A.
1947 Journey of Reconciliation
In 1947, in response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Morgan v. Virginia which outlawed segregation on interstate buses, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized the Journey of Reconciliation. This ride, undertaken by an integrated of men, traveled from Washington, D.C. through Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky to protest practices in interstate facilities and their modes of transportation.
B.
1961 CORE Freedom Ride
In 1961, CORE organized another Freedom Ride, this time composed of an integrated group of men and women to travel through the lower South to protest segregation in interstate facilities and their modes of transportation outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1960 in the case of Boynton v. Virginia. This group, which departed from Washington, D.C. on May 4, 1961, encountered violent resistance and attacks as they traveled down through the South particularly in South Carolina and Alabama. The goal was to arrive in New Orleans by May 17, 1961, the seventh anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case.
C.
Nashville Student Movement Freedom Ride
After the CORE sponsored group was forced to abandon the Freedom Ride and fly to New Orleans on May 17, 2016, members of the Nashville Student Movement arrived in Birmingham to continue the Freedom Ride through Alabama and into Mississippi. The group included an integrated group of students who were attending Tennessee State University and Tennessee Seminary in Nashville, TN. The students had undergone intensive nonviolence training at workshops taught by Rev. Jim Lawson for more than a year before joining the Freedom Rides. The students included: Jim Zwerg, John Lewis,
More Freedom Riders:
Once the members of the Nashville Student Movement were arrested in Mississippi and sent to Parchman Prison Farm to serve a required 40-day sentence for a charge of Breach of Peace, the students changed their strategy from continuing the ride to New Orleans as the CORE group originally planned, to filling the jails and prisons in Mississippi. The students with support by CORE, recruited hundreds of volunteers from all over the nation to join the Freedom Ride and come to Parchman Prison. More than 350 Freedom Riders, black and white, men and women, young and old, secular and religious, answered the call to join the ride by bus, train, and air and made their way to Parchman Prison Farm.
For a full list of the Freedom Riders and where they originated, please click here.