Freedom+Riders

= Activating Prior Knowledge; Greensboro Sit-In =  = The Freedom Riders =

Objectives:
 Students will be able to:
 * Understand that segregation existed in many areas of life in the South, including transportation, public accommodations, schools, stores and neighborhoods
 * Understand that segregation was sometimes enforced by law, sometimes by tradition and sometimes with violence
 * Explain how segregation involved both state and federal laws
 * Understand the tenets of nonviolent social protest
 * Analyze how nonviolent protest transformed the United States during the civil rights movement
 * Analyze why ordinary individuals risked their lives to end segregation

Essential Questions:

 * What is the philosophy of nonviolence? How did it shape the civil rights movement?
 * Why do people risk their lives to challenge injustice?
 * How does the federal government ensure that its laws are upheld? What happens when federal laws are not enforced?



Materials Needed:
**Framework**
 * [|The Freedom Riders] video and [|transcript] of the video
 * [|2001 interview] with Lewis and [|transcript] of video (extension activity)
 * Handout 2: The Freedom Riders
 * Handout 3: State and Federal Laws
 * Theory of Nonviolence

African Americans struggled for decades to win legal equality. Segregation was deeply entrenched in the South. Schools, public transportation and many public places were segregated. Lawsuits to challenge segregation in schools began as early as the 1930s. They culminated in the 1954 //Brown v. Board of Education// Supreme Court decision. Meanwhile, the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott took on segregated city buses. And sit-ins challenged segregation at lunch counters starting in 1960. During the summer of 1961, with the civil rights movement well underway, activists challenged yet another segregation stronghold: interstate bus travel. Technically, this segregation was already illegal. In 1946, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in //Morgan v. Virginia// that segregation in interstate travel was unconstitutional. In 1960, in //Boynton v. Virginia,// the high court ruled that it was also illegal in bus terminals. Despite these rulings, segregation continued. Most African Americans did not challenge tradition and assert their rights because of the likelihood of violent white resistance. The federal government refused to enforce the Supreme Court rulings. In 1961, a group of Freedom Riders—both black and white—challenged segregation on interstate buses and in terminals. In doing so, they also challenged federal officials to enforce U.S. law. The Freedom Riders boarded buses headed for Louisiana, only to confront violent resistance from white citizens and law enforcement in Alabama. During the conflict, which continued all summer, hundreds of protestors were jailed or injured in attacks by pro-segregation mobs. Eventually the federal government intervened to see that integration was enforced. By the time the Freedom Rides were over, segregation had suffered another blow. The Freedom Rides became a defining part of the civil rights movement, and the Freedom Riders became models of the heroism that transformed race relations. 

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