The rides took place on May 4, 1961. The riders were evenly divided volunteer African American and White collage students, mostly male. They rode on buses through the south to New Orleans. During the rides the small group of thirteen grew to nearly a thousand.
The laws they were fighting were the Jim Crow laws which said “Separate but Equal”. They required that all public transportation, schools and public places separated blacks and whites and the blacks almost always had worse accommodations.
The most violence occurred in Anniston, Alabama, near Birmingham, Alabama. The first bus was firebombed and when the Riders fled the bus they were beaten by Ku Klux Klan members with the protection of the police chief, Eugene “Bull” Connor. Meanwhile the second group of Riders pulled into Birmingham and was beaten by Ku Klux Klan members with the protection of the police. The Riders had to hide in a church to escape mobs.
As a result of the freedom rides many more people were motivated to challenge the civil rights act.
In the summer of 1961 the Riders also sat together, whites and blacks, at segregated restaurants, hotels and lunch counters.
