“F” is for Freedom Rides [1961-1962]. The Freedom Rides were a series of bus trips through the South designed to force compliance with the US Supreme Court decisions banning segregation in interstate bus travel. In May1961, the Congress of Racial Equality launched the first Freedom Ride, sending an interracial group of thirteen on commercial buses from Washington, DC, to New Orleans. The route included stops in Rock Hill, Winnsboro, and Sumter. At the Greyhound Station in Rock Hill, a group of white youths assaulted three Freedom Riders as one African-American rider approached the “white” waiting room. Police intervened before anyone was seriously injured, but made no arrests. In Winnsboro, police arrested, but later released, black riders when they requested service at a lunch counter reserved for whites. No violence or arrests occurred in Sumter, the last Freedom Ride stop in South Carolina.
"F" is for Freedom Rides
