50th anniversary of Freedom Riders

Charles McDew
Charles McDew of St. Paul is a founder of SNCC, the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, and a retired Metropolitan State University faculty member. He joined the Freedom Rides 50 years ago.
MPR Photo/Dan Olson

On May 4, 1961, seven blacks and six whites left Washington, DC in two public buses headed for the deep south to test the Supreme Court ruling desegregating public transportation.

They endured violence, beatings and jail terms — and one of the buses was burned — but they continued, and inspired dozens more "Freedom Rides".

The hostility of southern whites is explored in an American RadioWorks documentary, "State of Siege: Mississippi Whites and the Civil Rights Movement."

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