UMW Honors 50 Year Legacy of Freedom Riders

The University of Mary Washington honored the 50 year anniversary of the 1961 Freedom Rides earlier today with speeches from two of the original Freedom Riders and the unveiling of an exhibit of historic photographs displayed in and on a 1960's era Greyhound bus. 

The event kicked of a semester-long celebration of the non-violent protest led by James Farmer, who would go on to teach the history of the civil rights struggle at UMW for 12 years before retiring in 1998. 

Freedom Riders Joan Trumpauer Mulholland and Rev. Reginald Green were on hand for the celebration, which took place on the UMW campus in front of Lee Hall. In all, about 200 people gathered to hear short speeches from Green and Mulholland. 

 “Now it is the challenge of all of us—young people, college students—to find some project, some issue, that you are passionate about. Maybe it’s hunger, maybe it’s ecology, maybe it’s education,” Rev. Reginald Green of Washington, D.C. told the crowd. To hearty applause, he added, “Maybe it’s the message that says we’ve come too far to turn back now.”

In her speech, Mulholland said that she how much has changed since she participated in the struggle to integrate interstate highway transportation facilities in the south. 

"The man who is now in the White House was born in the year of the Freedom Rides," said Mulholland. "That is a sign of the social change that has happened."

 Freedom Riders were beaten and jailed, and their buses were attacked during the rides organized by James Farmer, then head of CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality. Farmer taught the history of the civil rights movement to Mary Washington students for about a dozen years before his retirement in 1998. That year, President Bill Clinton awarded Farmer the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2010, the university launched its campaign for a U.S. postage stamp honoring Farmer.

The university’s tribute to the rides will include the March 30 limited-release showing of the critically acclaimed PBS documentary “Freedom Riders.” The celebration will culminate with the May 7 commencement address by U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a Freedom Rider and civil rights leader, and a May 8 stop at UMW by the PBS “American Experience” bus carrying college-age students retracing the route of the first Freedom Ride.

The public is invited to the following events that are part of the Freedom Rides tribute, beginning during Black History Month:

• A lecture by Eric Etheridge at 7 p.m. Feb. 7 in the Great Hall, Woodard Campus Center. A journalist and photographer, Etheridge recently interviewed and photographed many of the original Freedom Riders for his book Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Freedom Riders.
•  An address, “Lessons of the Civil Rights Generation for Today’s Students,” by Andy Lewis, author ofThe Shadows of Youth: The Remarkable Journey of the Civil Rights Generation, from 3 to 5 p.m., Wednesday, March 30, in Lee Hall, room 411.
• Limited-release showing of the film “Freedom Riders” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 30, in Dodd Auditorium, George Washington Hall. PBS and UMW have collaborated on this special showing of the widely hailed documentary directed by Stanley Nelson. PBS will broadcast the film in May on “American Experience.”
• Freedom Riders panel discussion and Great Lives lecture at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 31, in Dodd Auditorium, featuring a talk by Raymond Arsenault, author ofFreedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, followed by a discussion with a panel of Freedom Riders.
• UMW commencement address by Rep. Lewis, part of the ceremony at 9 a.m., Saturday, May 7 on Ball Circle. Lewis, a civil rights colleague of James Farmer and organizer of sit-ins to protest segregation, co-founded and chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a leading organization for student activism.
• Students aboard the PBS “American Experience” bus retracing the route of the first Freedom Ride will stop Sunday, May 8 at UMW in Fredericksburg, part of the original route, for a commemoration at the James Farmer memorial on Campus Walk.