What happened to the freedom ride?

Answer 1

Although Rosa Parks was a significant figure in the Civil Rights Movement who is famous for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to comply with local Jim Crow laws, she was not part of "The Freedom Riders".

The Freedom Riders were groups of people who tested the enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Boynton v. Virginia (1960) and Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1946). The Morgan decision declared state laws enforcing segregation on interstate buses was illegal. The Boynton decision had outlawed racial segregation in the restaurants and waiting rooms in terminals serving buses that crossed state lines. The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) had also issued a ruling that "Separate but Equal" (the foundation for segregation) was flawed and rules and laws requiring segregation were null and void when applied to interstate travel. Unfortunately the ICC failed to enforce the policy.

The Freedom Riders boarded various forms of public transportation in the South to challenge local laws or customs that enforced segregation. On the first "rides" local law enforcement in a few places conspired to either arrest the Riders (in direct conflict with the Supreme Court decisions) or to allow mobs to attack them without intervening. A Greyhound bus carrying some of the Riders was attacked and burned near Anniston, Alabama. The mob tried to keep the doors of the bus shut to burn the Riders, but eventually retreated and settled for beating the Riders with bats, pipes and other weapons as they left the bus. The same bus was attacked again at the bus depot in Anniston, and yet again in Birmingham.

The "rides" continued from May 4, 1961 through September. In total, there were around 60 "rides". Most of the participants were arrested, beaten, or both. As a result of the "rides", the US Attorney General demanded that the ICC start enforcing the earlier rulings and segregation in interstate travel was forced to end. The publicity and example of the Freedom Riders helped motivate wider Civil Rights activities for many years.