freedom riders
For some reason, I knew virtually nothing about the Freedom Riders. Although I've read much about other aspects of the civil rights movement, including such thematically related events as the Montgomery bus boycott and the lunch-counter sit-ins, somehow this had escaped my attention. I knew that there were people called that, but I don't think I could have told you what they did.
So I watched the PBS documentary on Monday, and now I know what they did. The Freedom Riders were a predominantly black but racially mixed group of people who simply rode as passengers on Greyhound and Trailways buses in the south, ignoring the segregation laws that divided seating in the buses and terminals racially. (Such laws were already illegal in interstate commerce, but that fact was generally ignored.) The Freedom Riders wanted to see what would happen.
What happened in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia was generally that the segregation laws were suspended for them and quietly resumed after they left town. These authorities didn't want any trouble. From their point of view they were probably wise.
In Alabama, however, one group was attacked by a mob at the Birmingham bus station. Many were severely injured and went to hospital. The other group was attacked while still on their bus, which was set on fire intending to roast the passengers alive. Only when the gas tank blew up did the mob retreat enough to allow the passengers to escape, and then the mob beat them up.
As both groups were unable to travel further because the bus drivers refused to take them, another group formed in Nashville and headed south. Rather than being beaten up by a mob in Birmingham, they were arrested in Birmingham and then deported in the middle of the night back to the Tennessee state line. They immediately returned to Birmingham. Under threat from the U.S. Justice Dept., the state government assigned troopers to escort them to Montgomery, their next stop. When the troopers left them off, then they were attacked by a mob. So was the Justice Dept. official who'd gone to meet them.
After that, I gather, there were no more mass attacks. Instead, they got arrested, mostly in Mississippi, and the Riders adopted a technique of coming in such numbers that, if arrested, they would overflow the jails. This went on pretty much all summer. In the end, the national embarrassment of the reaction to the Freedom Riders put civil rights high on the Kennedy administration's priority list and led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Notice I write, "the reaction to," because that's the interesting part. The southern authorities denounced them as agitators. I suppose they were; they were deliberately trying to provoke. But the choice of reaction was that of the reactors. Had the Alabamans reacted as in Georgia and the Carolinas, or if they'd quietly arrested the Riders as in Mississippi, the old order would have been disturbed but not so openly exposed.
But to try to burn people alive ... because of which seat they choose on a bus? Really? That's just ... bananas. That and the mob attacks destroyed segregation's entire credibility.
And the Freedom Riders were very wise. Despite the attacks, despite being outnumbered everywhere, despite lack of local legal or governmental support, they won, because they kept the moral high ground. They were completely non-violent, having indeed been trained in role playing before they left on how to respond to racist provocations. And they refused to let violence defeat them. Even when the Justice Dept. pleaded with them to stop, they refused to let what happened to them be their fault. They succeeded at this because they kept the moral high ground, and that moral certainty probably accounts for their immense courage to continue in the face of terrorism.
This is the point I've tried to make in arguments over, for instance, the use of Senate filibusters. The filibuster is a "low" technique that cedes the moral high ground. Sometimes that's useful tactically. But if you don't have the strength to win tactically, and can only win strategically, you can only win in the long run by keeping the moral high ground and letting your enemies defeat themselves.
And if you're the subject of such a moral attack, you limit the damage by limiting the damage you impose on yourself. I've said this, with little success, to people who want to prohibit flag burning. I say, "You have to understand what the flag burners' motive is. Their motive is to get your goat. And if you react hysterically by trying to limit free speech, they've won; they've proved their point. Ignore them instead, and they'll go away." The flag burners, of course, are trying to provoke that particular reaction. The Freedom Riders had no idea what reaction they'd provoke until they did. And instead of defeating them, it made them stronger.
So I watched the PBS documentary on Monday, and now I know what they did. The Freedom Riders were a predominantly black but racially mixed group of people who simply rode as passengers on Greyhound and Trailways buses in the south, ignoring the segregation laws that divided seating in the buses and terminals racially. (Such laws were already illegal in interstate commerce, but that fact was generally ignored.) The Freedom Riders wanted to see what would happen.
What happened in Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia was generally that the segregation laws were suspended for them and quietly resumed after they left town. These authorities didn't want any trouble. From their point of view they were probably wise.
In Alabama, however, one group was attacked by a mob at the Birmingham bus station. Many were severely injured and went to hospital. The other group was attacked while still on their bus, which was set on fire intending to roast the passengers alive. Only when the gas tank blew up did the mob retreat enough to allow the passengers to escape, and then the mob beat them up.
As both groups were unable to travel further because the bus drivers refused to take them, another group formed in Nashville and headed south. Rather than being beaten up by a mob in Birmingham, they were arrested in Birmingham and then deported in the middle of the night back to the Tennessee state line. They immediately returned to Birmingham. Under threat from the U.S. Justice Dept., the state government assigned troopers to escort them to Montgomery, their next stop. When the troopers left them off, then they were attacked by a mob. So was the Justice Dept. official who'd gone to meet them.
After that, I gather, there were no more mass attacks. Instead, they got arrested, mostly in Mississippi, and the Riders adopted a technique of coming in such numbers that, if arrested, they would overflow the jails. This went on pretty much all summer. In the end, the national embarrassment of the reaction to the Freedom Riders put civil rights high on the Kennedy administration's priority list and led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Notice I write, "the reaction to," because that's the interesting part. The southern authorities denounced them as agitators. I suppose they were; they were deliberately trying to provoke. But the choice of reaction was that of the reactors. Had the Alabamans reacted as in Georgia and the Carolinas, or if they'd quietly arrested the Riders as in Mississippi, the old order would have been disturbed but not so openly exposed.
But to try to burn people alive ... because of which seat they choose on a bus? Really? That's just ... bananas. That and the mob attacks destroyed segregation's entire credibility.
And the Freedom Riders were very wise. Despite the attacks, despite being outnumbered everywhere, despite lack of local legal or governmental support, they won, because they kept the moral high ground. They were completely non-violent, having indeed been trained in role playing before they left on how to respond to racist provocations. And they refused to let violence defeat them. Even when the Justice Dept. pleaded with them to stop, they refused to let what happened to them be their fault. They succeeded at this because they kept the moral high ground, and that moral certainty probably accounts for their immense courage to continue in the face of terrorism.
This is the point I've tried to make in arguments over, for instance, the use of Senate filibusters. The filibuster is a "low" technique that cedes the moral high ground. Sometimes that's useful tactically. But if you don't have the strength to win tactically, and can only win strategically, you can only win in the long run by keeping the moral high ground and letting your enemies defeat themselves.
And if you're the subject of such a moral attack, you limit the damage by limiting the damage you impose on yourself. I've said this, with little success, to people who want to prohibit flag burning. I say, "You have to understand what the flag burners' motive is. Their motive is to get your goat. And if you react hysterically by trying to limit free speech, they've won; they've proved their point. Ignore them instead, and they'll go away." The flag burners, of course, are trying to provoke that particular reaction. The Freedom Riders had no idea what reaction they'd provoke until they did. And instead of defeating them, it made them stronger.