Description
Civil Rights Icon John Lewis remembers the Freedom Rides — and the movement that changed America.
Official website: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/ | #AmericanExperiencePBS
In this interview from the American Experience archives, civil rights leader and longtime U.S. Representative John Lewis reflects on his role in the Freedom Rides, one of the defining campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. Through firsthand memories, Lewis offers a deeply personal perspective on joining the movement as a young activist, the courage that sustained the Freedom Riders, and the racist violence they endured in their pursuit of justice.
Lewis spoke to filmmaker Stanley Nelson on June 4, 2009. This interview was conducted for our 2011 documentary FREEDOM RIDERS and is being published as part of our series spotlighting remarkable archival conversations with historians, journalists, eyewitnesses, and other primary sources whose insights deepen our understanding of the past.
Learn more about FREEDOM RIDERS: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/freedomriders/
00:00 John Lewis on Joining the 1961 Freedom Rides
02:09 The Reality of Segregated Travel & Jim Crow Laws
05:39 Leaving Washington, D.C.: The Dangerous Mission Begins
07:53 First Encounter with Violence: The Rock Hill Attack
12:29 Anniston Bus Burning: Facing the Reality of Hate
14:03 Nashville Student Movement: Deciding to Continue the Freedom Rides
15:59 Confrontation with Bull Connor in Birmingham, Alabama
20:17 Abandoned by Police: The Danger of the State Line
25:17 The Montgomery Bus Station Mob Attack
33:04 Siege at First Baptist Church & MLK’s Leadership
37:55 Federal Intervention: National Guard & Martial Law
39:47 Why Martin Luther King Jr. Didn’t Join the Freedom Rides
45:12 Traveling to Jackson, Mississippi: The Final Arrest of the Freedom Rides
48:12 Life Inside Parchman State Penitentiary
50:38 Parchman Prison: The "University of Nonviolence"
54:14 How Protest Songs Sustained the Civil Rights Movement
56:23 The Lasting Legacy of the 1961 Freedom Rides
#JohnLewis #FreedomRides #CivilRightsMovement #GoodTrouble #History #Documentary
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