When Nashville college students picked up where CORE riders stopped, they were eventually incarcerated in Mississippi. Yet more riders kept coming. Tune in to learn more about this major victory for the Civil Rights movement in this follow-up episode.
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really been seeing them see you now available. Wherever you get. My guests welcomes stuff. You missed in history class from house of works, dot, com,
hello and welcome to the package I am carried out and I am tabling a charcoal boarding. The temper we are commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Interstate commerce commissions ruling that
interstate bass and train facilities in the. U S had to pull down fine segregating white and black, and it was there was
of summer along effort by a group that call themselves the freedom riders to catch flaws that were already on the books. Edward
largely ignored through many southern state, so picking
We left off the original core writers have been badly beaten, traumatized and essentially evacuated out of Birmingham for New Orleans by a special assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and it seemed like
this time that the freedom rights had started. May fourth, nineteen sixty one in DC was over. At this point we should we should say to like if you are a listener he dropped than on random focus. It really is worth going back in and checking out that first up said: capital help, give you the contacts you need for this plan is the part too, but we left at a real cliffhanger there that with that one
Crucial moment bear in New Orleans defeated at theme. The can
we feel that things are wrapped up to their satisfaction, but then suddenly they get news out of Nashville that things are over at all right. Students in Nashville, many of them
veterans of the lunch counter, Siddons those still in
teens and early twenties. They decide
that the ride could not end in violence so spearheaded by Diana. She was a Fisk student. Many members of the national student movement decide to skip their finals and goat
Alabama you get on the bus and they
lately, no it's at stake. This is the part that just crazy to me and they make their wills these young kids and they
buses to Birmingham NASH,
coordinates the whole thing from home base in Nashville basically tells a Birmingham pasture were coming, and I mean the will the really shocking part, but the leaving before a final was a really big deal too, because a lot of these kids are the first members of their families to go to college, but they decide that continuing the freedom rides, not letting nonviolence.
In violence like this is, is the more important though this time, though, the make up of the riders is a little different from the first tried with
is all stage by the group core. It's still a mix of black and white men and women in their taking greyhound and railways breathless just like before, but they're all quite young. This time there were middle age, folks, retired people ass time, most of them. Now there are nineteen, twenty and their author, a lot more fathers in the groups, the kids from Atlanta and Nashville, of course, Charleston Tampa. In addition to kids from other parts of the country in New York, Oklahoma Illinois, it's it's kind of a more
verse group. In that sense,
thing happens when they get to Birmingham, though, when the fur,
specifies commissioner of public safety.
Bull Connor, who we mentioned in the last podcast he what's. The rush
We're passengers off, come
the window with paper and then
the remaining people on board, and, finally,
after they sweated out in the may heat for awhile there let off, and then they passed,
to the white waiting area and their arrest, in that
their released from jail and put into cars, which is very ominous, but they drive right, had state line of Alabama Tennessee and their told by Konrad to get out and make their way back to national from their Tennessee stew
university student Catherine Burke's Brooks tells Connor that we'll see,
can Birmingham by high noon, so they not about to be put down knowing- and this is still a scary situation, though, that they ve just then dropped off in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. They dont know, if maybe there's some vigilante group, the clan waiting for them. On the other side,
the border bullet oconnors does handing them off or
you're gonna do so they hide they find shelter with an older couple and by then
stay NASH has arranged
Fire ride for them to get back,
Birmingham and I don't think they make it by noon, but they do make it back the next day, but by the time
back in Birmingham, the national writers and meet the second wave of of bare grew there.
Just like last time, different buses travelling into Alabama, but their surprise,
besides bull corner in the threatening crowd, the bus drivers
Dr. So the writers are stuck there again, their stuck in Birmingham in we mention this than the last up. Thud individual bus drivers refusing to drive because they were afraid they would get their bus
that on fire or be beaten or something. But in this case the thing
our union refusing to drive, though there is really no way out of town again. Yes, over the moment, it's looking kind of hopeless, but the Kennedy administration. Finally, pressures Alabama governor John Patterson to promise
Action or else face having the National Guard called then, and so Patterson agrees to provide state protection as the riders continue their trip to Montgomery Alabama
are we mentioned this,
can heritage documentary in the less absurd based on ramen arsonists book, and it really contain some great interviews with former freedom writers, but it's worth watching, I think, just to see Catherine Burke's Brooks expression, as she recalls feeling relaxed enough to those on the bullshit. It's kind of an expression like what was I thinking makes with total D.
Point made a little sarcasm thrown in their it's. It's a key issue
but just to see that that that feeling
total relaxation able to fall asleep on the bus feeling, obviously doesnt. Last very long, because in Montgomery the state Protect
and dropped off and their thinking well, the city police will pick up protection
Nobody ever comes, though here the best is just rolling into Montgomery with no one.
Yeah
seeking dollar Robert Kennedys Assistant, the man who had been negotiating with the governor about providing state protection, he remained
Thinking
I knew suddenly betrayal disaster. I hope, not death. So he's scared to at this point a mile
of more than two hundred awaits at the Greyhound station for them. The first target this time
reporters and a cameraman because the mob has seen how quickly these pictures get out, not just in the south, not just in the United States, but all
the world, and they don't want that happening on so for a sense of what
would have been like for the reporters time report
Calvin trillion, who took part in the rise of the journalist, recently wrote in the new Yorker that he tell his friend a life. Photographer quote:
when we get in one of the situations at best, I dont know you at work
and one of the people chasing you. Of course. There.
There were also very severely beaten as
writer gems work was quickly beaten unconscious and kicked in the face before going down. No, he remembered seen men armed with a baseball bat chains hammers, and this is crazy, even one guy, with a pit
work, so imagine that coming towards you
the Brooks remembers women shouting with babies in their arms. It was a spectacle in addition to this really violent scene and Jean Louis,
had been part of the original core ride and had been actually attacked in South Carolina with hit in the head with a wooden Cray and William Barbie. Had somebody try to drive a steel rod through his ear and even
thinking dollar, who is the direct representative to the president, was hit with a pipe trying to help one of the female freedom writers and he was knocked unconscious, though finally the
sir, they broke up the crowd with tear gas, so the
stay may twenty four sort of marks. A turning point for the freedom rides. The riders and fifteen hundred supporters filled the first Baptist Church Montgomery for a meeting and by this point, Martin Luther King and the larger movement really had to get
solved in stand behind the writer, even though, as we mentioned
for many were ambivalent about the ride initially or even thought. It would come out hurting the movement, but after the vote
less. That head had happened. They they had to all stand together in and support the ride, and so Martin Luther King actually comes down to Montgomery to meet up with everyone here at the church outside the church.
Though, a mob of three thousand gather as their breaking windows, threatening to burn down the church, the marshals that are set and to control the crowd are just random federal workers. They dispersed tear gas with the wind blowing toward them and and that having to run away, they just have little patches on their sleeves, not even uniforms. So
after about there's this night, a phone calls. Martin Luther king is on the phone with Robert Kennedy. Trying to get him to do something. Robert Kennedy is on the phone with Patterson. Trying to get him to act. Mortals
king even even gathers up a group of committed nonviolent volunteers to leave the church and dissuade a group of
a cab drivers from using violence against the mob, so they're still trying to stick to the principle of non violence here, it's the best way for them to hopefully get out of this situation to so. Finally, the governor put
city under my shall lie, and people in the church are free,
Crowd is broken up their free to go and the freedom writers are also free to continue under the protection this time of the alibi on the national guard. So they hit the road heading toward Mississippi and at the border. The Mississippi National Guard takes over with commands to take the bus right on through to Jack than new stops. No trouble in a kind of themes, lake they're out of the frying pan into the fire here, because Mississippi was considered the most dangerous feathered, Stephen hear them talking about how
bad as Alabama had had been for them Mississippi, Thin Blake
might be worth worse. Things wreck waiting and their worst scary signs right across the border. There were signs that said things like quote: prepare to meet thy God, so
it looked like it was going to be as bad as I thought it was gonna be, but response that they get. There is quite different from Alabama messy mom violence according to trillion the former time reporter Mississippi's citizen,
council and State Sovereignty Commission wanted to avoid national new scandals.
Presidential interference to
president, an attorney general, wanted to avoid the violence and beatings on the National NEWS. So they made this compromise instead
mom violence. There would be an organised, rapid police response. So what does that mean this? Basically,
is that the first writers from trail ways disembark the best went
the whites waiting room and were asked to leave politely and after they refer
used they were arrested, and this happened again with the Greyhound bus, the charges again
Are things like a breach of peace through with this very orderly, non violence, comparatively com, and maybe even disturbingly comment or no after what they ve gone through? But from their they'd be quickly processed and fell through court put into the city jail and then eventually shipped off, not just
you any old prison, but to these state penitentiary parchment State prison farm, which was one of the most notorious presence in the country just a little thy know. Even if you don't know about parchment, you ve probably heard about it. If you listen really carefully to blues or folk recordings, because in the nineteen thirty that Alan Low MAX recorded fingers and policemen for the Library of Congress singing Ray
if that funds about how hard life was in parchment, but the freedom
I didn't have the expected
action that all
priorities in Mississippi thought they would have. They thought that they would just post they'll get out
and not hit out at that? He I get out of town, but instead they take up the slogan, jail, no bail and resolve to fill
the prison and clog up their system. So best
of them just keep coming through that summer. Even though on May twenty ninth Robert Cannon
petitions, the Interstate Commerce Commission, to prohibit segregation and interstate bus travel, and please,
with the riders to take a cooling off period. While the request this process is basically lake. Ok we're trying to push this through. Can you guys please stop for a little while you is encouraging them to shift their attention to voter registration of something something there
gone. Please let this go, but they were complete
unwilling to do that they rejected the cooling off period and instead the rights intensified hundred of the four hundred and thirty six freedom. Writers ended up at
prevent and finally
by that timber? Twenty second, the anniversary we are commemorating here, the IPCC, issued the order that all segregated finds would come down at interstate bus and train terminals.
We ve got to talk about. The the effect of the
I then and what people thought at the time since they were kind of unpopular at the beginning, even within the movement according to the New York,
article we mentioned earlier, and nineteen sixty one Gallup poll showed that only one in four Americans approved of the ride, but after the victory with clear that they had accomplished
they had been effective. Yesterday saw the nonviolent activism could really work according to
the article by Marian Smith HOMES, the New York Times, for example, which was formerly credit,
of the rights. They admitted that the freedom writers quote started the chain of events, which was
and a new acc order. It also idea,
if empowering young student leaders and of movement and of forcing ties between the Kennedy, administration and civil rights leader exactly those late night phone calls we are talking about where Martin Luther King is, is calling up the Kennedy, then, all of these nineteen year old twenty year old, who decide to leave folder
We are examining and go out and do this, but in addition to Raymond Arsenals Book and that american Experience documentary that is inspired by there is just so much on this story. It's a really really great
if you wanna do some research yourself and get even deeper into it. There are countless interviews and articles by former writers and politicians and journalists, and there is a great photographic records you and I wanted to just talk about that, a little bit more. Could they think it through interesting so
there are just images of the violent beating than the burning passes in the segregated waiting room phase. Images that really when across
international newspaper headlines. There are also could have more personal
just two so in two thousand to the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission was forced to open its archives after this link feeling,
T decade, Long Lafayette with the american civil Liberty, the union and after that three hundred mug shots of the freedom writers became available for the first time in an editor named Eric Etheridge decided to use really move
by all of these photos of these people who have been
I stood and kind of have these defiant look. Some of them are almost smiling. Some of them have clearly been rooftop, but he decided
to seek out the freedom matters that were photographed and re photograph them, since they would, of course, I'll be mature adults by that point, and he just called called them. He told Smithsonian that his quote best icebreaker was. I have your mug shot from nineteen sixty one. Have you ever seen it
so very cool. Storing he got a lot of photos made a book out of it and it is really interesting to see what
people went on to do with the rest of their lives. After after doing something like this,
maybe, when their only nineteen years old
I'm gonna, have to imagine that it was thrilling to call them and maybe meet them. I mean these people, no matter what you think about that
strategy, how they went about what they did. They were uniquely brave people and to find out how many of them were stolen
in activism or head continued work. That seemed really fitting for somebody who, as a former freedom, writers, somebody who would go out and do this.
Well, we are talking about the freedom minds in the American. South were not quite done with this topic, because people
Australia were motivated all through in the nineteen sixteen to state their own freedom rights and that's gonna got it all up a third next time they too, and if you want to learn a little bit more about the freedom and cannot, though, the just others, the rights topic there, maybe you're getting ready for us really good than other australian topics to power by EU mailing. At that history, pod cast house works that calm were also in Twitter, missed in history and we are facing, and if you want to learn a little bit more about some of the topics discussed today, we have an article called how the easy, oh you works, and you can find it on our website by going to our homepage, at W W W docked how stuff works. Dotcom restored a check out our new video about gas stuff from the future joint house.
Staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The house supports an Iphone, has arise, download it today, and I do hope that the vote of stuff- you must semester glasses, brought to you by Katy, keen I'll everybody
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Transcript generated on 2020-02-05.