The Alternative Press

SUMMIT, NJ – To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides of 1961, the Racial Justice Task Force of the Unitarian Church of Summit screened the documentary “Freedom Riders” and hosted Francis and Laura Randall, who spoke of their experience riding interstate buses to challenge racial segregation in the Deep South.

The duo, who met eight years before embarking on the pivotal ride, explained at the Saturday event that the governments of the Deep South flagrantly ignored US Supreme Court decisions outlawing segregation. “The states didn’t abide, but we were there to challenge them,” Francis told a crowd of about 25 people. “We successfully integrated waiting rooms, counters and toilets in 24 communities in four days.”

The Randalls and 400 other black and white men and women faced, at the very least, harassment and fear-inducing tactics. “At one bus station we encountered cottonmouth snakes,” Francis said. “Eighteen of our members were arrested in Tallahassee.”

“We got training on how to be nonviolent,” Francis explained. “We were told not to smoke cigarettes because they could be seen as weapons. We were never to use defiant language. We should not lift our hands above our beltlines.”

Though part of the larger non-violence movement, the Freedom Rides were highly controversial within the civil rights community and initially received little support from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Kennedy Administration. It was not until the situation escalated in Alabama that the country took notice.

On Mothers Day 1961, Ku Klux Klan members stopped a Greyhound bus in Anniston, attacked the riders and burned their bus. That same day at a Trailways bus station in Birmingham, a KKK mob savagely beat riders and innocent bystanders with iron pipes, chains and clubs.

The riders were undeterred.

Second waves of riders from Nashville faced imprisonment, firebombs and mob violence.

After six months of protests, the Interstate Commerce Commission outlawed discriminatory seating practices on interstate buses and ordered the removal of “whites only” signs from bus stations. Pockets of racist resistance persisted for several years, but by 1962 the signs came down.

“There were decades and decades leading up to this event. The freedom rides were the highlight of a long process,” Laura said. “It provided a watershed for hundreds of thousands of people who were working for equality.”

For Jean Crichton, chair of the evening’s event, racial equality is “not just black and white.” The overall goals of the Racial Justice Task Force are to promote racial justice awareness in the congregation and in the wider Summit community through exposure to both historical and current racial injustices, she says.

Attendees asked the Randalls how to make the lessons of the freedom rides relevant to younger generations. “In many ways it’s a different country and a different civilization today. But the balance is very delicate,” Laura said. “I will tell my grandchildren to consider how other people feel. Have respect and listen.”

Francis's dream is for racism to be a distant memory. “Wouldn’t it be great if kids were bored by reading this chapter of history?” Francis asked. “For them to say ‘that was hundreds of years ago’ and ‘segregation does not exist now.’ It would be far from what they know.”

"Today, it’s about trying to provide equal opportunities to everyone,” Laura said.

For Francis, it means never forgetting the fight. “On my tombstone next to my name and the date of my death I want only two words: Freedom Rider."