The story behind a courageous band of civil rights activists called the Freedom Riders who in 1961 creatively challenged a segregated interstate travel system in the American South.
The segregation and disenfranchisement laws known as "Jim Crow" represented a formal, codified system of racial apartheid that dominated the American South.Â
During the early 20th century, the NAACPÂ and other organizations employed a variety of courtroom strategies to chip away at Jim Crow laws mandating racial segregation.Â
In 1960, due to racially discriminatory voter registration practices, the overwhelming majority of voters in the South was white; the "Solid South," was key to the Democratic Party’s fortunes.
The Freedom Rides represented a major evolution in the tactics and strategy of the Civil Rights Movement and marked an unprecedented level of engagement with the federal government.
Midway between the 1954 Brown school desegregation decision and the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, the Freedom Rides captured the zeitgeist of the decade to come.
