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Freedom Riders
On May 24, 1961, during the American Civil Rights Movement, a large, interracial group of Freedom Riders was arrested in Jackson for “disturbing the peace” after they disembarked from their bus. Freedom Riders rode in interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decision Boynton v. Virginia, (1960) that held that racial segregation in public transportation was illegal because such segregation violated the Interstate Commerce Act, which broadly forebade discrimination in interstate passenger transportation. It moreover held that bus transportation was sufficiently related to interstate commerce to allow the United States Federal government to regulate it to forbid racial discrimination in the industry. However, local authorities ignored the Supreme Courts’ ruling by arresting and imprisoning the Freedom Riders against their legal rights. Even before the Jackson law enforcement put an end to the journey, citizens in cities across the South (particularly in Alabama) had inflicted severe violence upon the group. Although the Freedom Riders had planned to make New Orleans their final destination, Jackson was the farthest that any of them actually managed to travel.
