The Freeddom Riders

The Freedom Riders first began on May 4th-8th, 1961. There were thirteen Freedom Riders; they were young and old, black and white, male and female. Our goal was to travel to different towns around the south that were segregated. We left Washington DC in two separate buses.The two buses we took were the Greyhound and the Trailsway. We started this Freedom Ride to get the attention of the President at the time, John F. Kennedy. We all wanted to try and get his attention because before we started our journey as the Freedom Riders we thought they he would support us with trying to end racism. Our attempt to end racism was very difficult. We started to have complications when we arrived in Charlotte, many of us were attacked and arrested in Rock Hill of South Carolina. Our next stop was to Atlanta, Georgia. On May 14th the first buss that the Freedom Riders took were fire bombed, they didn't make it. The second bus, the one that i was on, made it to birmingham. The KKK were already there to try and get rid of us, they had beaten most of the Freedom Riders that were on the bus. It was a terrible experience. Four days later were were forced to end our journey in New Orleans.