It would be the "Biggest Thing on Earth," the salvation of the common man, a dam and irrigation project that would provide a source of cheap power—boosting an entire region of the country.
The state of Mississippi's plan to bankrupt CORE backfired when, on August 14, 1961, all but nine of the Freedom Riders returned to Jackson for their arraignment.
Former civil rights activists raised in the South recount how their commitment to nonviolence was sorely tested by the extreme hostility and mob violence they encountered.
After deciding to participate in the Freedom Rides in May 1961, Jim Zwerg called his parents for support only to be told that he was “killing his father.”
John Patterson, Alabama's governor from 1958 to 1963, discusses his decision to refuse a phone call from President Kennedy when the Freedom Riders encountered mob violence in Birmingham.
