Fifty years ago, America was struggling to implement the ideals of justice and equality set forth in our founding.  The Freedom Rides, organized in the spring of 1961, were an interracial, nonviolent effort to protest the practice of segregation.  Setting out from Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961, the Freedom Riders sought to actualize the decision in Boynton v. Virginia, which held that interstate passengers had a right to be served without discrimination, and to challenge the enforcement of local segregation laws and practices.     

The Freedom Rides, organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and other devoted advocates, built upon the boycotts and sit‑ins that were defying Jim Crow segregation across the South.  The Freedom Riders themselves were black and white, often students and young people, and committed to the cause of nonviolent resistance.  Along the way, buses were attacked and men and women were intimidated, arrested, and brutally beaten.  The publicity generated by the courageous Freedom Riders as they faced continued violence and complicit local police drew the attention of the Kennedy Administration and Americans across our country.