50th anniversary of Freedom Riders
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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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