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Civil Rights Movement Milestones
Civil Rights Movement Milestones. Fifty years ago this month, a group of activists called the Freedom Riders rode buses through the South to try to thwart segregation, but they faced violent consequences. Here’s a look at those riders and at other pivotal moments in the civil rights movement.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregated public schools unconstitutional. Which "separate but equal" ruling did it overturn?
Montgomery Bus Boycott
In December 1955, African-American residents of this Alabama city protested the segregated public bus system.
Little Rock Nine
In 1957, nine African-American students enrolled in a previously segregated Arkansas high school (now a landmark), but they were blocked from entering on their first day.
Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins
On Feb. 1, 1960, four African-American college students sat down at a retailer’s lunch counter in silent protest of segregated dining policies. The protest grew to include more students and other cities and stores
Freedom Riders
Starting in May 1961, civil rights activists began riding interstate buses throughout the South to expose discrimination that existed on buses despite a court ruling in favor of desegregation. The riders faced brutal opposition
March on Washington
On Aug. 28, 1963, civil rights groups staged a peaceful march that culminated at a D.C. landmark. There, Martin Luther King Jr. addressed thousands on behalf of his organization and delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech.
Freedom Summer
In June 1964, Northern volunteers attempted a voter registration drive in Mississippi. The Ku Klux Klan and local authorities staged repeated attacks. Three of the volunteers disappeared.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
This bill outlawed discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or sex — including segregation in schools and public facilities.
Selma March of 1965
On March 7, 1965, hundreds of civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Ala., started a march to Montgomery to protest unfair voting practices, as well as the death of an unarmed local man.
Voting Rights Act of 1965
On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed this act into law, outlawing discriminatory voting practices.
Source:specials

178 former Freedom Riders on Oprah Winfrey Show
178 former Freedom Riders on Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah Winfrey is marking the 50th anniversary of the first Freedom Ride.
Harpo Productions says 178 former Freedom Riders will be on Wednesday's episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in one of the largest gatherings of Freedom Riders since 1961. The riders peacefully opposed 1960s racial segregation of the South.

Winfrey says she owes "a deep debt of gratitude" to the Freedom Riders. She says she knows her "life would be different were it not for them."


Guests on the show are to include U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia and John Seigenthaler, who was assistant to then-U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Both men were beaten during the civil rights movement.

The episode is to be among Winfrey's last. "The Oprah Winfrey Show" ends May 25 after 25 years.
Read More:azcentral

Freedom Riders

by Shazy | 10:35 AM in |

Freedom Riders
Freedom riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decision Boynton v. Virginia (of 1960). The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.

Boynton v. Virginia had outlawed racial segregation in the restaurants and waiting rooms in terminals serving buses that crossed state lines. Five years prior to the Boynton ruling, the Interstate Commerce Commission had issued a ruling in Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company that had explicitly denounced the Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine of separate but equal in interstate bus travel, but the ICC had failed to enforce its own ruling, and thus Jim Crow travel laws remained in force throughout the South.
The Freedom Riders set out to challenge this status quo by riding various forms of public transportation in the South to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation. The Freedom Rides, and the violent reactions they provoked, bolstered the credibility of the American Civil Rights Movement and called national attention to the violent disregard for the law that was used to enforce segregation in the southern United States. Riders were arrested for trespassing, unlawful assembly, and violating state and local Jim Crow laws, along with other alleged offenses.

Most of the subsequent rides were sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), while others belonged to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced "Snick"). The Freedom Rides followed on the heels of dramatic sit-ins against segregated lunch counters conducted by students and youth throughout the South and boycotts beginning in 1960.

The United States Supreme Court's decision in Boynton v. Virginia granted interstate travelers the legal right to disregard local segregation ordinances regarding interstate transportation facilities. But the Freedom Riders' rights were not enforced, and their actions were considered criminal acts throughout most of the South. For example, upon the Riders' arrival in Mississippi, their journey ended with imprisonment for exercising their legal rights in interstate travel. Similar arrests took place in other Southern cities.
Read More:wikipedia

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