Talk:Freedom Riders

Source for negative press comment?

Towards the end of the "Impact" section is the sentence: "The press in white communities condemned the direct action approach CORE was taking, while the national press negatively portrayed the Riders." What is the source for saying that the national press negatively portrayed the Riders? My recollection at the time, and my current ongoing research does not support that assertion. Yes, some in the national media condemned direct action of any sort, but many others lauded the courage and nonviolence of the riders -- particularly in light of the fact that the riders were not engaged in civil-disobedience but rather demanding enforcement of Federal law. Brucehartford (talk) 17:55, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Removed "Today's Freedom Riders" section

I removed the unsigned new section titled "Today's Freedom Riders" because it has nothing to do with the subject of this article. If someone thinks that it is worth posting, it should be a separate article. Brucehartford (talk) 15:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

How can you listen to the song if you cant find it can someone put a url or somehting so people can listen to the song not just to a myspace —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rice91 (talk • contribs) 08:00, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this should be combined. Note that Freedom Riders entry has many errors, attributes the Freedom Rides to CORE (incorrect), etc. See http://www.freedomridersfoundation.org/brief.history.html for a better history. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.30.225.99 (talk • contribs) 13:58, 25 January 2006 UTC.

No it shouldn't be combined, and it can correctly be contributed to both SNCC and CORE, which founded it. -----J.E

I agree with both of you....

It definitely should be combined, and CORE did create the freedom riders! Colea

It should be combined; the two are essentially synonyms. No knowledge of the history but that should be easy to come by. Calmofthestorm

yes should be combined, and the main founder of freedom rides was CORE

I'm a Freedom Rider and I think it should be combined. SNCC sponsored several Freedom Rides when a ICC ruling finally abolished segregation in interstate transportation facilities. (A lot of people confuse the Nashville Student Movement with SNCC, which wasn't true at the time.) Virtually all of the 436 persons who went on Freedom Rides during the summer of 1961 were sponsored by CORE. It's worth noting that NAACP Legal Defense Fund chief Thurgood Marhall--who opposed the Freedom Rides at first because he was afraid they would prompt a backlash threatening civil rights achievements--later gave Jim Farmer several hundred thousand dollars in "excess" funds to use for bail in Mississippi. Dr. King refused to join the first Freedom Rides and had very little to do with any of them. Read Ray Arsenault's recent book titled "Freedom Rides: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice" (Oxford University Press 1961) for the definitive work on this subject.

Combine them, just not under Freedom Riders, under Freedom Rides, no one searches for participants they search for the events.A mcmurray 23:13, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, combine them. As the first discussion item points out, the Freedom Riders entry has many errors, foremost that it fails to mention the Journey of Reconciliation (if anything, that should be a separate entry) and waxes long but irrelevantly on the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Also, with all due respect that Professor Arsenault's book is the most complete on the subject, it unfortunately has errors. Notably and ironically, that includes missed dates, similar to the "1961" publishing date cited by the writer above (the book came out earlier this year). As for the writer of that discussion item, I apologize for even mentioning your minor error; we all owe much to you and certainly should defer to your judgment as a Freedom Rider that one entry would suffice.

Cleanup

This article has been tagged for a while now, and it needs to meet the standards. Lets get sources, tables of contents, all that stuff.

Stealthrabbit127, the RabbiN8r 16:10, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What a mess! This article has been almost rendered useless, with a mixture of the very academic (Boynton v. Virginia right in the beginning, which would lose most readers and means nothing for the serious student without first citing Morgan v. Virginia) and the inane, a rock song mentioning the rides. This article should be one of those that is closed to editing, after it is restored to a reasonable version of months past. Robinbirk (talk • contribs) 19:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While I am currently busy I have several books which discuss the Freedom Rides at length including:

Blumberg, Rhonda Lois. Civil Rights: The 1960s Freedom Struggle, Twayne Publishers, New York: 1984, 1991. (ISBN 0805797335).
D'Angelo, Raymond. The American Civil Rights Movement: Readings & Interpretations, McGraw Hill/Dushkin, 2001. (ISBN 0072399872)
Dierenfield, Bruce J. The Civil Rights Movement, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow, England: 2004. (ISBN 0582357373).
Lewis, John L. Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement, Simon & Schuster, New York: 1998. (ISBN 0156007088).

My original intention, when I created sections that have since been eliminated, was to incorporate these sources into a major expansion/referencing project. I kind of got busy with other things around the Wiki. When I have time, I will make it a priority to fix this article up good and proper. Following a major expansion on Rock Springs Massacre and near future FA nomination I should have a good idea how to approach a good quality history article such as this. IvoShandor 16:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thins like "This is true!" make the article look unprofessional. teamcoltra

Old vandalism to be sure, thanks for catching it, I will watch this article a bit more closely as I removed "this is not a very helpful source from the intro. IvoShandor 09:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to add to additional messiness - I have some documentation regarding the Freedom Riders in Tallahassee FL, and a resulting lawsuit (Dresner v. City of Tallahassee), that I added (and forgot to include in the edit summary (I'm new, be kind...) --LesaDG (talk) 03:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Murdered freedom riders

I came to this page to learn about the 3 freedom riders who were arrested, then handed over to the KKK by a sherif, and then turned up dead in a swamp a few weeks later.

Their names were a 21-year-old black Mississippian, James Chaney, and two white New Yorkers, Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 24

Iam suprised this isn't mentioned on the page

86.137.134.53 (talk) 22:08, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They're not mentioned here because they weren't Freedom Riders. :-)

You can read about Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman at Mississippi civil rights workers murders. — [[::User:Malik Shabazz|Malik Shabazz]] (talk · contribs) 03:53, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Malik is correct, Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman were not Freedom Riders as the term is normally used, and their lynching is described in the Wiki article Mississippi civil rights workers murders. But after the Freedom Rides it was common in some black communities of Mississippi and elsewhere in the south to casually refer to all civil rights activists as "Freedom Riders." So, it was not unusual for Freedom Summer volunteers, and SNCC, CORE, and SCLC organizers in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana to be called "Freedom Riders" even though they had not actually participated in the Freedom Rides of 1961.

Brucehartford (talk) 19:45, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, thankyou. The book I read about them in referred to them as 'freedom riders', so I assumed that that's what they were. Much obliged to you for pointing me to the correct article and clearing up the soubriquet confusion.

86.141.182.225 (talk) 16:56, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Removed Senator Dodd from list of riders

Someone listed Senator Dodd (D-CT) in the Notable Freedom Riders section. I removed his name pending some evidence. I checked "Freedom Riders" by Raymond Arsenault which contains the definitive list of riders, and did not find Dodd's name. Brucehartford (talk) 16:34, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My mistake. I happen to know he was one, but I can't seem to find an RS. -- 209.6.238.201 (talk) 02:02, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Added some primary source citations

I found some good newspaper articles from the day. Glad to contribute to this article. Ynottry (talk) 05:27, 28 November 2010 (UTC)Ynottry fagss[reply]

Movin' on?

Since even the page itself uses "Freedom Riders", shouldn't it be moved to Freedom Riders? TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 21:16, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 21:32, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]