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Freedom Rides, 1961  

Definition

  • During the summer and fall of 1961, approximately 400 citizens enacted nonviolent direct action protests challenging local segregation laws that defied a 1960 Supreme Court ruling extending the desegregation of public interstate transportation to include bus terminals and facilities. Their strategy was to demand full access to buses and terminal facilities, knowing that doing so would provoke a violent reaction from southern whites and force the federal government to enforce the law. [Source: Encyclopedia of Activism and Social Justice; Freedom Rides, 1961]

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https://concepts.sagepub.com/social-science/concept/Freedom_Rides,_1961

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