Freedom Riders

Freedom Riders

Seattle CORE's Efforts to Fight Racial Discrimination in the south

Throughout the South the waiting areas in bus stations, train stations and airports where designated WHITE ONLY or COLORED ONLY. This was in direct defiance of a Supreme Court decision in 1960 that segregation of interstate transportation facilities, including bus terminals, was unconstitutional.

CORE Freedom Riders, men and women, Black and white, set out on May 4, 1961 to challenge this form of discrimination. The plan was to ride a Trailway and a Greyhound bus from Washington, DC to New Orleans testing this ruling...

The first violence occurred in Rock Hill, South Carolina when an integrated team of John Lewis (currently a member of the US Congress) and Albert Bigelow attempted to enter a white-only waiting area and were brutally beaten. Two days later one of the buses reaching Anniston, Alabama, was attacked by an angry mob that set the bus on fire and beat the Freedom Riders as they fled the burning bus. Later that same day the second integrated group was also attacked when their bus reached Birmingham, Alabama - they were beaten with baseball bats and lead pipes, while law enforcement officers stood by and did nothing.

Refusing to accept defeat and believing this challenge must continue, a national plea to join the Freedom Riders, to fill the jails, and to work to end violence was heard all across the nation. Ray Cooper, a 19 year old art student from Seattle heard this plea. Ray's story follows with details of his Freedom ride to Jackson, Mississippi and the 45 days he spent in Parchman Farm Penitentiary. Upon his release from prison the Seattle CORE chapter raised money for Ray's bail and funds for transportation when Ray had to returned to Mississippi in early spring for his court appearance.

The Freedom Rides became the spark that ignited the civil rights movement not only in the South, the North and mid-west but right here in Seattle.

Top of page photo credits: Seattle Post-Intelligencer collection, 1985.5.5938.2, Museum of History and Industry, Seattle.

PBS Freedom Riders' Broadcast

UW Video Interview with Authors

Ray Cooper

Photo Credits: Photo is a mug shot of Ray Cooper arrested during a Freedom Ride in Jackson, Mississippi in 1961.

Freedom Riders

Photo Credits: CORE, Matson Collection.