Dusting Off the Long Road to Freedom

"The past isn't dead.  It isn't even the past."

            -Mississippi author William Faulkner

Got my hand on the freedom plow

Wouldn't take nothing for my journey now

Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on!

- Traditional, adapted by Alice Wine

Dusting Off the Long Road to Freedom*

By Stephen Terrell

*Guest column published in Indianapolis Herald Community Newspaper

Golden anniversaries are landmarks in our lives.  At 100 years, or even 75 years, anniversaries of momentous events become no more than memorial dates on a calendar.  Something relegated to history books.  Something you have to study in school.

            But 50-year anniversaries are different.  They are alive.  They are flesh and blood, mortality still not having laid claim to those who witnessed what would become history, but what was at the time the immediacy of their present.  Those who were young are still here, still vibrant and vigorous. 

            At 50 years, people who participated in momentous events recall them with a sharpness of memory, a soul of emotions; a visceral experience still lived in quiet moments of reflection and sometimes instances of recalled terror.   To them, those who became victims are not just names on a memorial.  They were friends, living and breathing people who were scared, who hurt, who bled -- brothers and sisters born of a common experience

            So it is a shame that this month -- Black History Month -- we must note the passing of a great 50-year anniversary that went largely unnoticed in the nation at large.    It was one of so many momentous events of the Civil Rights Movement, the half-century anniversaries of which have come and gone largely without fanfare -- without notice, without recognition of the incalculable bravery and sacrifice of so many who stood down the batons, the dogs, the fire hoses - and sometimes the guns and ropes.

            This May marks the 51st anniversary of the Freedom Riders.

            Who were the Freedom Riders?  Unfortunately, there are many young people -- even many people under 50 -- who have to ask that question.

            Let's give the short answer first.  The Freedom Riders were American heroes.  They were men and women, black and white.  No less than any soldier, they displayed courage in the face of certain danger, putting their lives on the line for their beliefs, for freedom, for their country.  They changed America and the world.

            The longer answer requires some historical context.  By 1961, the Civil Rights Movement had gained momentum.  But that momentum caused what had been an annoyance to now become a full-fledged threat to a way of life in the South.  Segregation, separate but equal, and Jim Crow were under full attack.  And those who supported the South as it was, as it always had been, were willing to fight back with clubs, fire hoses, and guns.  Fight back in uniforms of the status quo, be those of local sheriff's departments or sheets of the Klan. 

            In 1960, U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion outlawing segregation in interstate travel.  But the ruling was ignored in the South where Jim Crow laws reigned.

            So in 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) planned demonstrations to force the hand of the Federal government -- the Freedom Rides.    Thirteen riders, 7 black and 6 white, led by James Farmer and including now Congressman John Lewis left Washington D.C. headed through the heart of South to New Orleans.  They sat together.  They took seats reserved for whites. 

            Around Birmingham, the Klan with the explicit encouragement of Birmingham Police Commissioner “Bull” Connor viciously attacked the riders.  White Freedom Riders were targeted for the worst beatings.  Outside of Birmingham, the bus was disabled and firebombed.  The attackers tried to hold the doors shut in order to burn the riders inside, but were thwarted.

            Again in Montgomery, the Freedom Riders were  attacked and beaten.  But at the First Baptist Church, 1500 people including Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. hailed them as the heroes they were.

            Throughout the summer of 1961, the Freedom Rides continued.  Imagine the courage it took.  Beaten, and beaten again. Firebombed.   Battered and bloodied.  But still, unbowed, they got back on those busses. 

            Ahead of them -- ahead of the Civil Rights Movement -- lay much of "the long road to freedom"-- the deaths of three Mississippi Civil Rights workers, the assassination of Medgar Evers, James Meredith’s attempt to enroll at the University of Mississippi, George Wallace's "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" speech, the March on Washington, the confrontation at the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the Selma to Montgomery March, and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1965. 

            As the 50th Anniversary of so many of these events approach, let us not forget.  Let us not allow these dates to go unnoticed.  Remember and celebrate.   Honor those whose courage changed America for all Americans.