John Lewis, Part 3: The 1961 Freedom Rides
On May 4, 1961, 13 passengers – including 21-year-old seminary student John Lewis – boarded two buses in Washington, DC, bound for New Orleans. Their goal? Challenge and expose state laws that continued to enforce segregation on buses and in bus terminals despite the 1960 Boynton v. Virginia U.S. Supreme Court ruling prohibiting the segregation of interstate travel. This was the first Freedom Ride organized by CORE (Congress of Racial Equality). Their first confrontation with violent segregationists took place in Rock Hill, South Carolina. As the Freedom Riders tried to enter a “whites-only” waiting room in Rock Hill’s Greyhound terminal, John Lewis and others were assaulted by a mob of young white men. The violence escalated further on a highway outside Anniston, Alabama, when one of the Freedom Ride buses was firebombed. When the Freedom Riders escaped the burning bus, they were attacked by a mob of white segregationists. John Lewis was also on the Freedom Ride from Birmingham to