T he United States Supreme Court, in Morgan v. Virginia (1946), ruled the Virginia law requiring racial segregation on commercial interstate buses to be a violation of the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. Fourteen years later (1960), in Boynton v. Virginia, the High Court ruled that the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 should be interpreted to ban all forms of segregation by race in any type of public transportation. And though these rulings were undisputed, Southern states ignored them and the federal government did not intercede to uphold them.

To draw national attention to this illegal practice, The Freedom Riders rode buses across state lines with both white and black riders. Sponsored mostly by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Riders embarked on the first Freedom Ride on May 4, 1961. Their Greyhound bus left Washington D.C. with planned stops in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama, with termination of that initial ride in New Orleans, Louisiana for a planned civil rights rally. The Riders were mostly college students trained in nonviolent tactics. Several of those riders later became civil rights activists—including John Lewis, Genevieve Hughes, William E. Harbour, Joan Trumpauer Mullholland, and Ed Blankenheim. More than 300 Riders were arrested in Charlotte, North Carolina; Winnsboro, South Carolina; and Jackson, Mississippi. The Freedom Riders’ defiance of Southern Jim Crow Laws regarding segregated seating on public transportation sparked numerous arrests and violent reactions, including the burning of one of The Freedom Riders’ two buses outside Anniston, Alabama. 

Some of the worst violence took place in Birmingham, Alabama where a second group of Freedom Riders—embarking from Atlanta, Georgia—were attacked by the Ku Klux Klan as part of a plan aided and abetted by police to put an end to the Freedom Riders and uphold Southern Jim Crow Laws.

Over the next several months, 436 Riders participated in more than 60 Freedom Rides.

Featured in this artwork is the youngest Freedom Rider—Hezekiah Watkins, arrested at age 13.