Student Sit-Ins and Freedom Rides

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Student Sit-Ins and Freedom Rides

• A Struggle for Equality

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The Greensboro Sit-In
The Southern USA during the 50s and 60s was
inherently racist. The state governments put in
force a practice called segregation, where blacks
and whites were kept totally separate from each
other. Facilities for black people were usually
vastly inferior. On the 1st of February 1960,
four black university students in Greensboro,
North Carolina, Jibreel Khazan (Ezell Blair Jr.),
Franklin Eugene McCain, Joseph Alfred McNeil and
David Lenail Richmond, made a daring protest
against the segregation laws of Americas deep
south. They walked into the local Woolworths, a
segregated establishment, and sat at the counter
in the lunch bar, a whites only area (blacks
were expected to stand and eat). The students
were sick of being discriminated against
and not being allowed the same privileges as the
white people. This was an important event in the
history of black civil rights because it was the
start of a nation-wide movement against
segregation.
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Freedom Rides

• In 1961, the Freedom Riders, a dedicated group
  of men and women, black and white, young and old
  across the country boarded buses, trains and
  planes bound South to challenge that regions
  outdated Jim Crow laws and the non-compliance
  with a US Supreme Court decision that prohibited
  segregation in all interstate public
  transportation facilities.
• The first Freedom Riders were members of the
  Nashville Student Group, a local group of
  students who had successfully desegregated the
  lunch counters and movie theatres in that city.
• Freedom Rides boarded the buses and took their
  places, blacks and whites seated together on the
  bus, an act already considered a crime in most
  segregated states. At stops along the way, the
  Freedom Riders entered whites and coloured
  areas contrary to where they were supposed to go
  and ate together at segregated lunch counters.
• They met little resistance along the way until
  Rockville, S.C. where an angry mob beat the
  Freedom Riders as they pulled into the station.
  This was the first of many such beatings the
  Freedom Riders were to receive at the hands of
  angry mobs.

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Freedom Rides cont.

• Undaunted by the beatings. the Freedom Riders
  continued on their journey until May, 14th, 1961
  when they were met by an angry mob in Anniston,
  Alabama. a firebomb was thrown and exploded
  inside the bus. As the Freedom Riders tried to
  escape the exit doors were blocked by the mob.
  One of the gas tanks exploded and the mob rushed
  back allowing the Freedom Riders to push the
  doors open and escape. As they exited the burning
  bus, they rushed outside and were beaten by the
  waiting vigilantes with lead pipes and baseball
  bats. Only an onboard undercover agent prevented
  the Freedom Riders from being lynched. Later that
  same day the Freedom Riders were beaten a second
  time as they arrived in Birmingham, Alabama.

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The Relationship Between Student Sit ins, Freedom
Rides, and Maya Angelous Poetry

• In both events the black students suffered abuse
  but still continued to protest because they
  believed in their cause. This relates to Maya
  Angelous poem still I rise.
• You may shoot me with your words,
• You may cut me with your eyes,
• You may kill me with your hatefulness,
• But still, like air, Ill rise.
• This stanza from still I rise reflects how the
  blacks felt went they were protesting against
  segregation in the south. They were being
  discriminated against and although they were
  constantly put down, they continued to protest
  rise with sit ins and freedom rides to prove
  their point that this segregation was wrong.

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Continued

• Student sit ins and freedom rides also relate to
  Maya Angelous poem Equality. This poem has
  strong allusions to the protests of blacks
  against segregation.
• Yes my drums are beating nightly,
• And my rhythms never change.
• Equality and I will be free.
• Equality and I will be free.
• The mention of drums beating out a message of
  equality relates to drums used in protests and
  military marches to give power to their speeches
  and rhythm to their marching. The repetition of
  the line equality and I will be free sounds
  like a protest chant, another allusion to protest
  marches.