Freedom riders

"The Law of the Land is Our Demand" 75 percent of the Freedom Riders were under 35, making it a youthful movement that sparked the greater civil rights activism of the mid-1960s.

Freedom Riders were attacked by white mob at bus station in McComb, Miss., November 29, 1961

The powerful, harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever.

Freedom summer volunteers singing “We Shall Overcome,” the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement on June 19, 1964. Description from momentmag.com. I searched for this on bing.com/images

Experience an evening of performances marking the 50th anniversary of the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project.

Calvin Trillin recalls the time he spent as a young journalist travelling with Freedom Riders in the Deep South.

More than 470 people would take part in the Freedom Rides in the summer of 1961. Over 300 were arrested: Mug shots of some of the more than 300 “freedom riders” who were arrested in Mississippi during the summer of 1961.

These are the mug shots of the Freedom Riders as they were arrested in 1961. Most of them were sent to the brutal Parchman Prison in Mississippi. These are only 32 of the 400 riders who fought for Freedom.

Freedom riders consist of black and white activist who visited the South to stop segregation.

Freedom Riders: Then

Five decades after the Freedom Riders put their lives on the line for equal rights, LIFE.com presents rare photos from that heady era.

Never forget the courage and sacrifice of the Freedom Riders. Firebombed Freedom Ride bus in Annison, Alabama, on Mother's Day, May 14, 1961. Photo courtesy of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

The Freedom Riders as they were called risked their lives in hopes of bringing attention to the counties great racial divide.

John Lewis and fellow Freedom Rider James Zwerg were attacked by pro-segregationists in Montgomery, Alabama. May 20, 1961.

Freedom Rides, political protests against segregation by Blacks and whites who rode buses together through the U.S. South in 1961. Convinced that segregationists would violently protest this action, the Freedom Riders hoped to provoke the federal enforcement of the Supreme Court’s Boynton v. Virginia decision.

A group of Freedom Riders from Tennessee stands at the door of a Greyhound bus in Birmingham,Ala., waiting for a bus to leave for Montgomery on May 19, 1961. The Tennessee Board of Regents has changed its decision to deny honorary degrees to 14 students, at what is now called Tennessee State University, who were expelled for participating in Freedom Rides of the 1960s civil rights movement. The board voted unanimously on Friday, April 25, 2008, to change its March vote, which brought…

Freedom Riders, Sarah Lawrence College, John Contino