Freedom Rides

There were two freedom rides: one in 1961 and one in 1964. I am reading a book about the one in Mississippi in the summer of 1964. The 1961 one took place across Alabama. It is important to know the story of both.


Freedom Riders in Montgomery after 50 years find a better city, a better state, a better people
Published: Friday, May 20, 2011, 2:44 PM Updated: Friday, May 20, 2011, 3:26 PM
By Christine Kneidinger, al.com al.com



Freedom Riders 50th Anniversary

MONTGOMERY, Alabama — On May 20, 1961, John Lewis and Jim Zwerg were among Freedom Riders beaten at Montgomery's Greyhound station.

This morning, five decades after the two rode to end segregated transportation, they arrived in Montgomery again.


They talked about what the 21 riders achieved 50 years earlier and celebrated the opening of The Freedom Rides Museum at 201 S. Court St.


Lewis and Zwerg today were joined by a throng of supporters.

Lewis, a U.S. representative from Georgia, was in 1961 a 21-year-old seminary student who had joined other riders to end segregated interstate transportation.


The small station-turned-museum commemorates a large achievement, Lewis said.

"I think the Freedom Rides have changed America forever. The City of Montgomery is a better city, Alabama a better state and now we are a better people," said Lewis. "I say thank you, because now we are now one people, we are one family and we are one bus."


Zwerg, then 21, was an exchange student at Beloit College in Wisconsin. He was violently beaten by members of the Klan that day. He was hospitalized and did not continue his journey. But he remembers the day for more than the violence he endured.


"Montgomery was a city of firsts for me," Zwerg said this morning. "It was the first time I ever got the crap kicked out of me, yes, but it was also the first time I ever got a bouquet of flowers. One of you folks sent me flowers in the hospital, and I'll always remember the card: 'Not everyone in Montgomery is like those who met you at the bus station'"


Inside the museum sits the old "colored entrance," now completely shut and bricked over, but still standing as a reminder of what the Freedom Rides accomplished.


A sign beside the exhibit reads: "This is what the Freedom Riders wanted to change. And they did."


The work of 16 artists adorns the 1951 bus station as part of a yearlong "Road to Equality- 1961 Freedom Rides" exhibit.


Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange said it's key to remember what the travelers went through in their effort to open the highways and the minds of the South.


"It's important to tell the story of what happened for those who weren't there and those who will come in the future," said Strange. "May we never repeat anything like that horrible part of history."