Home > History Fact Finder > Political and Social Movements - What Were The Freedom Rides?

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page
4. Tweet This

What were the Freedom Rides?

The Freedom Rides were a series of bus rides designed to test the strength of the U.S. Supreme Court's prohibition of segregation (separation of black people from white people) in interstate travel. In 1960, in the case of Boynton v. Virginia, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Howard University student who stood up against the segregation laws at a Richmond, Virginia, bus station. After this ruling, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) decided to test the enforcement of the new federal law by initiating the Freedom Rides. On May 4, 1961, thirteen people, both black and white, boarded a bus headed for the South. When the bus reached Montgomery, Alabama, a white mob was waiting to attack the protesters. A riot broke out and U.S. marshals (law enforcement officials) were sent in to restore order. Although the campaign to desegregate transportation was ultimately successful, the...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. International Movements
   1. When did nationalism emerge?
   2. What is Zionism?
   3. What was the nonviolent Indian reform movement?
   4. What was the May Fourth Movement?
   5. Who were the Wobblies?
   6. Who was Eugene Debs?
   7. What happened at Tiananmen Square?
   8. What is Solidarity?
   9. What was the anti-apartheid movement?
   10. When did the birth control movement begin?
   11. Do women have the right to vote in all countries of the world?
   12. What is the zero population growth movement?
2. American Movements
   1. When did the abolitionism begin?
   2. How did the slavery question affect the admission of new states to the Union?
   3. What is racism?
   4. Did slavery end when the slave trade was outlawed in Britain?
   5. Why did President Lincoln wait to issue the Emancipation Proclamation?
   6. What is the history of the Ku Klux Klan?
   7. What was the Niagara movement?
   8. Who were the notable abolitionists?
   9. What was the nonviolence movement?
   10. When and how did the Civil Rights movement begin?
   11. What were the Freedom Rides?
   12. When did Martin Luther King Jr. give his famous "I Have a Dream" speech?
   13. What does the letter "X" in Malcolm X's name mean?
   14. How did Southern states prevent African Americans from voting in the first half of the twentieth century?
   15. What was the Temperance movement?
   16. What was the American Suffragist movement?
   17. What is Populism?
   18. What was the Progressive movement?
   19. When did the U.S. labor movement begin?
   20. Why was the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory important?
   21. What is the AFL-CIO?
   22. Who was César Chávez?
   23. Who are Nader's Raiders?
   24. Who were the hippies?
   25. Did the feminist movement begin in the twentieth century?
   26. How did Silent Spring influence the environmental protection movement?
   27. What is the ERA?
   28. What is the gay rights movement?