Arsenault Raymond. Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice

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526 Freedom Riders

communications. Graduating in 1985 at the age of sixty-eight, she went on to

Queens College, where she earned an M.A. degree in urban studies in 1990.

Along the way, she maintained a keen interest in issues of racial equality and

social justice, demonstrating her concern in numerous ways, from writing let-

ters to officials on behalf of victims of discrimination to an annual gesture of

inviting homeless persons to her home for Thanksgiving dinner.

Shunning her status as a historic figure, Irene Kirkaldy sought and re-

ceived no public attention until 1995, when she made a brief appearance in a

documentary film on the Journey of Reconciliation. Five years later, during

the summer of 2000, she was rediscovered a second time by a Washington Post

journalist and a Gloucester County Historical Society committee conducting

research for the county’s upcoming 350th anniversary. Eager to include at least

one black hero in its list of historical personages, the committee invited Kirkaldy

to attend the anniversary celebration as an honored guest. Establishing a schol-

arship fund in her name and feting her with a special “Homecoming for Irene

Morgan” day in early August, the local establishment that had treated her so

harshly in the 1940s went out of its way to make amends. Kirkaldy’s response

to all of this attention was both gracious and measured. As a frequent visitor to

the county where most of her mother’s family had lived and worked since the

time of slavery, she knew all too well that racial and economic discrimination

still burdened the poorest and darkest citizens of the Virginia Southside. But

she was also touched by the genuinely warm reception that she received from

both blacks and whites in the new Gloucester.

On balance, the experience was more than enough to revive a long-

suppressed idea of moving south, and six months later her sense that both the

white South and the entire nation had changed for the better was confirmed by

a public tribute from a Southern-born president born the same year as the

landmark Supreme Court decision bearing her name. Invited to the White

House by President Clinton, she—along with twenty-seven others, including

Fred Shuttlesworth, sports stars Muhammad Ali and Hank Aaron, and NAACP

attorneys Jack Greenberg and Constance Baker Motley—was awarded the cov-

eted Presidential Citizens Medal. “When Irene Morgan boarded a bus for Bal-

timore in the summer of 1944,” the medal citation proclaimed, “she took the

first step on a journey that would change America forever.”

Whether this apparent transformation will prove to be as fundamental

or as permanent as the citation implies remains an open question. But even

the most skeptical among us should take some comfort from Irene Kirkaldy’s

recent decision to live out her days in Gloucester. Since January 2004 she

and her daughter have shared a home just down the road from the bus stop

where she was once denied simple justice. Surrounded by friends and family

members who see her as a righteous symbol of redemption and promise, she

lives peacefully, secure in the knowledge that her life—like the lives of the

Freedom Riders who came after her—made a difference. For her, at least,

the long-awaited day of jubilee has arrived.

Acknowledgments

THIS IS PRIMARILY A BOOK OF INTERRELATED STORIES, and I fear that my personal story pales in

comparison with the lives and experiences of the Freedom Riders. Nevertheless, I feel that I

owe my readers at least a few words of autobiographical explanation, a brief reflection on how

and why I came to write this book. Though born on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, I spent much

of my childhood in Virginia, Maryland, and northern Florida. During the 1950s and early

1960s, several alternating stints in the North and South left me with a measure of confusion on

matters of regional identity and culture. By my teenage years, making sense of race and civil

rights across time and space had become both a personal passion and a survival skill. In 1961,

the year of the Freedom Rides, I was a junior high school student living in suburban Maryland

a few miles from the Washington bus stations that launched the first Freedom Ride. I have

only vague memories of the headlines that followed and my reactions to the burning bus and

the senseless beatings in Birmingham and Montgomery. I remember having sympathy for the

Riders but also wondering why they had chosen such a provocative and dangerous means of

protest. Like many other young Americans during the Kennedy years, I had hopeful expecta-

tions about the future of American democracy and generally trusted the administration to do

what was right. This optimism was reinforced during a high school field trip in the spring of

1963 when I spent several hours in a Senate hearing room listening to Attorney General Robert

Kennedy defend civil rights while withstanding a withering assault by several reactionary South-

ern segregationists.

Later that year, just as my family was preparing to move to northern Florida, I had a

chance encounter with a group of black civil rights activists on the eve of the March on Wash-

ington. For more than two hours they explained why they had come to Washington, and when

I responded sympathetically they urged me to join the march, even though I was only fifteen.

The next day, as I rode southward though Virginia and the Carolinas with my parents, I was

consumed with guilt and the suspicion that I had just squandered my first opportunity to

witness history in the making. Over the next two years, as I navigated my way around the social

conservatism of a segregated high school, this lost opportunity nagged at my conscience, though

for the most part I did not act upon these feelings until later.

My interest in civil rights and civil rights history took on new life during my undergradu-

ate years at Princeton, thanks to the inspiring teaching and engaged scholarship of Sheldon

Hackney. I have often wondered what my life and career would have been like if I had not had

the good fortune to become Sheldon’s research assistant in the summer of 1967. A native of

Birmingham with close personal and intellectual ties to the civil rights movement, he intro-

duced me to a cast of historical characters and a hidden world of activism and struggle that I

could have scarcely imagined a year earlier. Under his mentorship, I confronted the dark his-

tory of race and region while trying to deal with the confounding realities of contemporary

political polarization and social fragmentation. The civil rights movement itself was fragment-

ing, as hope struggled against disillusionment, and the entire tumultuous scene was both fasci-

nating and disturbing, providing me with enough puzzling questions to sustain a lifetime of

inquiry and intellectual and political engagement.

528 Acknowledgments

Later, as a graduate student at Brandeis University, I learned a great deal more about social

movements—and the broader study of social and political history—from a remarkable interdis-

ciplinary faculty that included David Hackett Fischer, John Demos, Morton Keller, Marvin

Meyers, and Jim Green. Set against the unpredictable social and political backdrop of the 1970s,

this historical education deepened my interest in the interconnected realties of political power,

grassroots democracy, and social justice. Understanding these interconnections was the central

concern of my dissertation and first book, a case study of early twentieth-century Southern dema-

goguery, and this same concern later propelled me to write Freedom Riders.

During thirty years of teaching and research, first at the University of Minnesota and

later at the University of South Florida, I have tackled an eclectic list of historical topics, from

air-conditioning and hurricanes to baseball and the Bill of Rights. But no topic has ever en-

gaged my attention as deeply as the Freedom Rides. It has been a long and wonderful ride, and

I want to thank the many people who helped and guided me along the way. During the past

decade I have been the beneficiary of so many acts of kindness, generosity, and consideration

that I hardly know where to begin my thanks and acknowledgments.

Most obviously, I owe an incalculable debt to the scores of former Freedom Riders and

civil rights activists, journalists, government officials, and other contemporary observers who

shared their memories, experiences, and perspectives. Some did so in casual conversations,

others in extended oral history interviews. But each reminiscence, however brief or impromptu,

added something significant to my knowledge of the text and context of the Freedom Rides. In

the field of civil rights scholarship, oral history is an essential tool, and I could not have written

this book without the help and cooperation of Peter Ackerberg, Zev Aelony, Thomas Armstrong

III, Michael Audain, Aleah Bacquie, George Barrett, Abraham Bassford, Scott Bates, Robert

Baum, Charles Berrard, Ed Blankenheim, Jorgia Siegel Bordofsky, Clark Bouwman, Harry

Boyte Jr., Ellen Kleinman Broms, Catherine Burks Brooks, Joan Browning, Gordon Carey,

Clyde Carter, Judge Robert L. Carter, William Sloane Coffin Jr., John Collier, Lucretia Collins,

Norma Collins, Ben Cox, Margaret Crowder, Marv Davidov, Glenda Gaither Davis, James K.

Davis, David Dennis, James Emerson Dennis, Dion Diamond, John Doar, Paul Abdullah

Dietrich, John Dolan, Israel Dresner, Patricia Stephens Due, Leslie Dunbar, W. McKee Evans,

Bob Farrell, Walter Fauntroy, Robert Filner, John Hope Franklin, Martin Freedman, Win-

ston Fuller, Tom Gaither, Joe Gerbac, William Goodman, Jacquelyn Grant, Reginald Green,

Steve Green, Joe Griffith, Michael Grubbs, Herbert Hamilton, Bill Hansen, Bill Harbour,

Harry Harvey, Bob Heller, Burton Hersh, Holly Hogrobrooks, George Houser, Mae Frances

Moultrie Howard, Charles Jones, Irene Amos Morgan Kirkaldy, Pat Kovner, Bernard Lafayette,

Barbara Lawrence, Belford Lawson III, Margaret Leonard, Alan Levine, John Lewis, Norma

Libson, Claude Liggins, Chela Lightchild, Kwame Leo Lillard, Morton Linder, Mary Little-

Vance, Leon Litwack, Rudy Lombard, Lenore Taitt Magubane, John Maguire, Salynn

McCollum, Mikki McCray, Steve McNichols, Beverly Mill, John Moody Jr., Jerry Moore,

Sherwood Morgan, Dave Morton, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, Charles David Myers, Diane

Nash, Frank Nelson, Juanita Nelson, Moses Newson, Sandra Nixon, Claire O’Connor, Gene

Patterson, Max Pavesic, Charles Person, Alphonso and Kredelle Petway, Philip Posner, Grady

Wilson Powell Sr., Laura Randall, Janet B. Reinitz, Marvin Rich, Ralph Roy, Steve Sanfield,

Shirley Saunders, John Seigenthaler, Sidney Shanken, Rick Sheviakov, Fred Shuttlesworth,

Carol Ruth Silver, Benjamin Simms, Howard Simon, Robert Singleton, Jerome Smith, Woolcott

Smith, Doratha Smith-Simmons, Bill Svanoe, John Swomley, John Taylor, Hank Thomas,

Gene Uphoff, C. T. Vivian, Matthew Walker Jr., Wyatt Tee Walker, Hezekiah Watkins,

Frank Wilkinson, Mike Wolfson, Virgil Wood, William Worthy, Ellen Ziskind, Lewis

Zuchman, and Jim Zwerg.

Several of these interviewees—Charles Berrard, Ed Blankenheim, Joan Browning, John

Dolan, Steve Green, Steve McNichols, Francis and Laura Randall, Ralph Roy, Rick Sheviakov,

and Carol Ruth Silver—deserve special thanks for allowing me to make use of their written

memoirs. And several others—including Ed Blankenheim, Catherine Burks Brooks, Gordon

Carey, Ben Cox, Si Dresner, Bill Harbour, Bernard Lafayette, Marvin Rich, and John

Seigenthaler—went well beyond what is normally expected of an oral history subject, provid-

ing me with photographs and other memorabilia, fact-checking parts of the manuscript, and

responding to my numerous queries about what must have seemed to be arcane details. Collec-

tively, they saved me from making an embarrassingly long list of mistakes; my gratitude to

them cannot be overstated, and I hope they recognize and take pride in their positive impact

on the book. As the unofficial archivist of the Freedom Rides, Bill Harbour was especially

generous in sharing his vast knowledge and collected artifacts related to the Rides, and I want

him to know how much I appreciate his many kindnesses.

I also owe a special debt to Sherwood Morgan for providing me with photographs and

other documentary evidence related to his mother’s remarkable life, and to John Lewis and

Acknowledgments 529

Carol Ruth Silver for encouraging me to participate in two memorable Freedom Riders reunions

in 2001. Thanks also to Nicole Young and David Lisker for organizing the reunions and facilitat-

ing my participation, and to Susan Glisson for graciously arranging for the reproduction of the

Freedom Rider interviews conducted in Jackson in November 2001. I am also grateful to Jerry

Eisterhold for inviting me to take part in the development of the Rosa Parks Museum in Mont-

gomery and the International Civil Rights Center and Museum in Greensboro.

Attempting to reconstruct the history of the Freedom Rides sometimes made me feel like

an overmatched child tackling a massive jigsaw puzzle. But fortunately I never had to face the

puzzle alone. From start to finish, I was able to draw upon the talents and insights of others,

including a long list of imaginative and dedicated civil rights historians who have turned this

once neglected area into one of American history’s most vital subfields. Several of these pio-

neering civil rights historians have provided me with much-needed assistance, friendship, and

intellectual stimulation during the long gestation of this book; I want to express my sincere

appreciation to Tony Badger, Bud Bartley, Jack Bass, Fitz Brundage, Clay Carson, Dan Carter,

Derek Catsam, Bill Chafe, David Chalmers, David Chappell, Jim Cobb, David Colburn, Connie

Curry, Jane Dailey, Pete Daniel, Jack Davis, John D’Emilio, John Dittmer, Charles Eagles,

John Egerton, Glenn Eskew, Sara Evans, Adam Fairclough, Lee Formwalt, John Hope Franklin,

Kari Frederickson, David Garrow, Paul Gaston, David Goldfield, Jim Grossman, Steve Hahn,

Jackie Hall, Wesley Hogan, Walter Jackson, Betsy Jacoway, Maxine Jones, Richard King, John

Kirk, Bob Korstad, Steve Lawson, Jama Lazerow, Len Lempel, George Lewis, Peter Ling,

Ralph Luker, Neil McMillen, Vivien Miller, Kay Mills, Geoff Norrell, Gail O’Brien, David

Oshinsky, Greg Padgett, Jim Patterson, Charles Payne, Larry Powell, John Salmond, Harvard

Sitkoff, Lara Smith, Pat Sullivan, Mills Thornton, Stephen Tuck, Tim Tyson, Brian Ward,

Clive Webb, and Steve Whitfield. I am especially grateful to John Dittmer for reading the

original book proposal, to Lee Formwalt for assisting me with the Albany material, to Ralph

Luker for helping me on several occasions with research leads, to Lara Smith for tracking

down Irene Morgan, to Pat Sullivan for arranging an interview with Judge Robert Carter, and

to Mills Thornton for all of his help during our long collaboration on Alabama history.

I am also indebted to several journalists who helped me with various aspects of my re-

search. Sincere thanks to Carol Morello and Leonard Downie Jr. of the Washington Post, Craig

Colgan of the Charlotte Observer, Bill Maxwell of the St. Petersburg Times, Mark Strassmann of

CBS News, and Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute.

I would also like to thank Michael O’Brien, Bert Wyatt-Brown, Vernon Burton, Jim

Farmer, Drew Faust, Sarah Gardner, Chaz Joyner, Steve Kantrowitz, John Mayfield, David

Moltke-Hansen, Houston Roberson, Mitch Snay, Steve Stowe, and the other “usual suspects”

who have turned the annual meetings of the Southern Intellectual History Circle into an un-

paralleled community of scholars. I like to think that my many experiences with the “Circle”

have sharpened my critical facilities and made this a better book, even though my narrative

approach to history may still fall short of “intellectual history” standards.

I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to another circle—a small group of close friends whom

I have known since my graduate school days at Brandeis in the early 1970s. Despite geographic

dispersal and frequent humiliations and disappointments on and off the tennis court (and in-

side Fenway Park), we have remained close and more or less sane for more than thirty years,

sharing the joy of true friendship and an uncommon bond of intellectual curiosity and personal

commitment. Notwithstanding the side bets that this book would never see the light of day,

Steve and Lee Whitfield, Jim and Lois Horton, Fred Hoxie, Dave and Elaine Gould, Ted and

Nan Hammett, David Oshinsky, and Mitch Snay are still the most cherished of friends. As

always, Steve, the toughest and sharpest of critics, was willing to read my work at a moment’s

notice, despite his rigorous schedule as an international pundit. And Jim took time out from

his presidential labors at the OAH to provide wise counsel about how to bring a long-overdue

book to closure. The others did even more important work, sharing my blind faith in the Red

Sox even when they were seemingly down to their last out.

Several other close friends provided critical support during the writing of this book. Even

though they faced the daunting challenge of finishing their own weighty tomes, my University

of South Florida colleagues Gary Mormino and John Belohlavek never missed an opportunity

to lend a hand or to offer timely words of encouragement. Both are master teachers and tal-

ented scholars, but most of all they are two of the finest human beings on the planet. Jack

Davis, a former student who turned himself into a first-rate historian and more recently into a

happily married man and proud father, assumed most of the burden of completing our co-

edited book on Florida’s environmental history, allowing me to concentrate on the Freedom

Riders. And, despite an overwhelming array of professional commitments, he accompanied me

to two Freedom Rider reunions and was the first to volunteer to read large portions of the

manuscript. I am deeply grateful for his insightful comments and continuing friendship. I

530 Acknowledgments

would also like to thank three other friends who offered expert commentary on portions of the

manuscript: Sheldon Hackney of the University of Pennsylvania; and Richard King and Peter

Ling, both of the University of Nottingham.

Many other friends offered advice and encouragement at critical points during the writ-

ing of this book. Sincere thanks to Jean Agnew, Merle Allshouse, Charles Arnade, Chris

Arsenault, Bill and Marion Ballard, Ron Bayor, Bill Belleville, Laurie Berlin, Peter and Susan

Betzer, Bob Bickel, Pam Blankenheim, Jim Bledsoe, Jeannie Blue, Sarah Boyer, Alan Brinkley,

Mark Brown, Sally Brown, Seville Brown, Tom Brown, Rus Buchan, Fran Cary, Robert

Cassanello, Lloyd and Louise Chapin, Tim Clemmons, Beverly Coyle, Goliath Davis, Jack

Day, Erig Deggans, Bob Devin-Jones, Arnette Doctor, Carol and Justus Doenecke, Paul Dosal,

Don Doyle, Tom and Vicky Dunn, Susie Erenrich, Rebecca Falkenberry, Charlotte Fellonius,

Janine Farver, Robert Ford, Steve Forman, Ron Formisano, Gaines Foster, Winnie Foster,

Larry Friedman, Matt Gallman, Jennifer Gallop, Thavolia Glymph, Sid Goetz, Peter

Golenbock, Don and Marika Gordon, Ed Griffin, Mike Grossberg, Ira Grupper, Lucy Hack-

ney, Bill Harris, Dirk Hartog, Harry Harvey, Leland Hawes, Adrien Helm, Ben Houston,

Mark Huddle, Andy Huse, Allen and Bobbie Isaacman, Carolyn Johnston, Jackie Jones, Walter

Kalaf, Jon Kile, Susan King, Jack Temple Kirby, Jeff Klinkenberg, Peter Kuryla, Jane Landers,

Reed and Glenna Letsinger, Anthony Lewis, Riley L. Lewis Jr., Susan Lockwood, Rob Lorei,

John C. Meehan, Jeanne and Peter Meinke, Tyna Middleton, Randall Miller, Ray Mohl, Jerry

Moore, Meredith Morris-Babb, Lynne Mormino, Bill Murray, Harvey and Nancy Nelsen,

Roby O’Brien, Barbara O’Reilley, Kathleen Paul, Paul Pohlman, Patricia Putnam, Bob

Randolph, John Shelton Reed, Rene Reno, Larry Rivers, Randy Roberts, Sonya Rudenstine,

Ann Schoenacher, Stuart Schwartz, Ken Scott, Joyce Seltzer, Perkins Shelton, Mike Slicker,

John David Smith, Herb Snitzer, Diane Sommerville, Rhonda Sonnenberg, David Stamps,

David Starr, Ward Stavig, Bob and Carol Steele, Ted and Bill Steger, Betty Jean Steinshouer,

Jim Stewart, John and Sheila Stewart, Bill Stokes, Marian Strobel, Tom Terrill, Brenda

Thornton, Susan Turner, Ruth Uphaus, Don Vappie, Maria Vesperi, Bill and Sally Wallace,

Nigel Watson, Vibert White, Lee Whitfield, and Randall Williams.

Janine Farver, director of the Florida Humanities Council, deserves special mention for

pulling off one of the cruelest April Fools’ jokes in living memory. I am sure that if he had

wanted to, David Garrow could have written No Easy Ride to Freedom, the definitive account of

the Freedom Rides based on more than seven hundred interviews. But it was something of a

relief to learn that the splashy HarperCollins press release announcing Garrow’s forthcoming

book was a concoction of Janine’s devious mind.

During the past decade, a number of institutions and individuals have provided me with

opportunities to present various aspects of my research on the Freedom Rides. I am grateful to

Dean Frank Wetta and Daytona Beach Community College for asking me to kick off their

spring 2000 lecture series on “America in the Sixties” with a lecture on the Freedom Rides; to

Jim Horton and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History for in-

viting me to speak at its February 2001 symposium “Created Equal: African Americans and the

Presidency”; to David Moltke-Hansen of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania for inviting

me to participate in a session on “Liberty and Equality: The Civil Rights Years” at the April

2001 conference commemorating the 225th anniversary of the Pennsylvania Abolition Soci-

ety; to Sylvia Frey and Larry Powell for allowing me to organize and moderate the Freedom

Rider session at the April 2001 Tulane–Cambridge University Conference on Freedom Struggles

in the Atlantic World; to Vernon Burton and Bo Moore for organizing the 2003 Citadel Con-

ference on the Civil Rights Movement in South Carolina, where I presented a paper on the

Freedom Riders’ experiences in South Carolina; to Clive Webb for organizing a session on the

Freedom Rides at the 2003 British Association of American Studies conference at Aberstwyth,

Wales; to Chaz Joyner for asking me to deliver the 2003 Phi Alpha Theta Lecture at Coastal

Carolina University; to Bob Bickel and the Stetson University College of Law for asking me to

moderate a symposium on civil rights and the Brown decision at the February 2004 Law and

Higher Education Conference held in Clearwater, Florida; and to John Kirk and Mara Keire

for inviting me to present a paper on the Freedom Rides to the American History Research

Seminar at the University of London’s Institute for Historical Research in February 2005.

I would like to thank Ed Blankenheim, Ben Cox, Diane Nash, and Hank Thomas for

making the session at the Tulane–Cambridge conference so inspiring, and Ed and Ben once

again for joining me at the University of Illinois in May 2004 for an equally memorable Free-

dom Rider mini-reunion. Ben, John Hope Franklin, and Gene Patterson also deserve thanks

for participating in the civil rights panel at the Florida ACLU’s 2003 Nelson Poynter Award

Banquet held in St. Petersburg. Thanks also to Maurice Jackson for bringing down the house

with a medley of Freedom Rider and other freedom songs at the banquet. I am also grateful to

Gordon Carey, Connie Curry, Pat and John Due, Walter Fauntroy, Robert Hayling, Stetson

Kennedy, Bernard Lafayette, Fred Shuttlesworth, and a host of other veteran activists for

Acknowledgments 531

participating in the June 2004 conference on the Civil Rights Movement in Florida, held at the

University of South Florida, St. Petersburg.

Sincere thanks to Glenn Feldman for including an early version of chapter 1 in his an-

thology Before Brown: Civil Rights and White Backlash in the Modern South, and to Samuel C.

Hyde Jr. for including a preliminary version of chapter 2 in Sunbelt Revolution: The Historical

Progression of the Civil Rights Struggle in the Gulf South, 1866–2000. Thanks also to Bob Bickel

for publishing chapter 1 in the Winter 2005 issue of the Stetson Law Review, and to Barbara

O’Reilley and the Florida Humanities Council for including a portion of chapter 8 in the

spring 2004 issue of Forum.

I want to acknowledge the generous support of the University of South Florida Publica-

tions Council, which helped fund the reproduction and acquisition of photographs for the

book. I am also grateful for the long-standing support of the University of South Florida, St.

Petersburg, which granted me a sabbatical leave during the fall of 2002. Over the past twenty-

five years I have developed a deep affection for this unique institution and the community of

scholars, students, and staff that have made it such a special place to teach. My life and career

have been enriched by the genuine collegiality of a long line of supportive campus administra-

tors, including John Hinz, Bill Garrett, Lowell Davis, Karen Spear, Sam Fustukjian, Bill Heller,

Winston Bridges, Ralph Wilcox, Mark Durand, Lisa Starks, Jim Malek, Vivian Fueyo, and

Karen White. In one way or another, all of these individuals helped make it possible for me to

devote much of my time to research and writing, and I want to thank them for their many

kindnesses and indulgences. I have also benefited greatly from the wise counsel and encour-

agement offered by a number of other colleagues at USFSP. I owe special thanks to my history

colleagues Gary Mormino, David Carr, James Kessenides, and Susan Fernandez. Thanks also

to Bob Hall, Tim Reilly, Harriet Deer, Herb Karl, Ambe Njoh, Jerry Dreller, Rebecca Johns,

Hugh LaFollette, Thomas Smith, Jay Sokolovsky, Julie Armstrong, Tom Hallock, Chris Meindl,

Deanna Michael, Van Hilliard, Joy Clingman, Bob Fowler, Bob Dardenne, Mike Killenberg,

Mark Pezzo, Sarah Partan, Jessica Cabness, Peter Kalliney, Judithann McLauchlan, Darryl

Paulson, Dan Wells, and Regis Factor.

I would also like to express my appreciation to the many students who, over the course of

three decades, have helped sustain and broaden my interest in the history of civil rights and the

struggle for racial justice. I do not have room to note them all by name, but some deserve

special mention: Glenda Alvin, Ellen Babb, Evan Bennett, Stephanie Chiariello, Tom Collins,

Joe Cubine, Anita Cutting, Jack Davis, Sam Davis, Don Falls, Thom Foley, Kathie Gibson,

Amy Goodden, Lee Irby, Jamel Jemni, Scholastica Kimani, Janice Law, Meeghan Kane, Earl

Lewis, Gordon Mantler, David McCally, Clark Miller, Marissa Monroe, Tiffany Patterson,

Loretta Pippin, Kim Rogers, Marc Rotenberg, Monica Rowland, Jim Schnur, Ragnar

Sigurdsson, David Shedden, David Starr, Joe Trotter, Milly Vappie, Jake Vonk, David Seth

Walker, Christian Warren, and Jon Wilson.

Several graduate assistants in the Florida Studies Program helped me at various stages of

the book’s progress, and I want to acknowledge their hard work and important contributions.

I was very fortunate to draw upon the talents of Kelly Benjamin, Judy Koch, Steve Davis-

Thompson, Nick Hansen, Lucy Jones, Meeghan Kane, Monica Rowland, Scott Lauinger, Allen

Miller, Suzanne St. John, Nevin Sitler, Albert Vogt, Diane Wakeman, and Edward Wood-

ward. Meeghan Kane and Monica Rowland shouldered an extraordinary set of burdens during

the 2004 conference on the Civil Rights Movement in Florida, and Meeghan went on to de-

vote most of the past year to the Freedom Rides. Her cheerful enthusiasm and selfless dedica-

tion to the completion of the book have been invaluable, and I cannot thank her enough for all

that she has done.

I would also like to thank the irrepressible denizens of the Snell House for providing me

with what is surely one of the best places in the world to work. I owe so much to the campus

earth mother and Devil Rays maven Sudsy Tschiderer, Marti “Moneybags” Garratt, Danita

Marie, Barbara Ness, Lisa Wharton Turner, and Greta Scheid-Wells. Special thanks to won-

derful Greta for returning to the fold.

This book could not have been completed without the help of numerous librarians and

archivists. Foremost among them are the talented and dedicated librarians at the Nelson Poynter

Memorial Library at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. I am especially grateful

to Dean Kathleen Hardee Arsenault; Director of Special Collections Jim Schnur, Jerry Notaro,

Jackie Jackson, Tina Neville, Mika Nelson, Karilyn Jaap, Jackie Shewmaker, Deb Henry, Anita

Lindsay, Tony Smith, Berrie Watson, Charlotte Barbour, Barbara Reynolds, and David Brodosi.

I also want to thank Mark Greenberg, director of Special Collections and head of the Florida

Studies Center at the University of South Florida, Tampa, Library. In Alabama, I received

excellent assistance from Jim Baggett of the Birmingham Public Library; Tom Mullins of the

Anniston-Calhoun County Public Library; and from Ed Bridges, director of the Alabama State

Archives in Montgomery. In Atlanta, Georgia, the library staff at the Martin Luther King Jr.

532 Acknowledgments

Center for Nonviolent Social Change, went out of their way to be helpful. At the Mississippi

Department of Archives and History, I received valuable assistance from Nancy Bounds and

Anne Webster. I also owe a special debt to Jan Hillegas of Jackson, who was instrumental in

helping me photocopy a large portion of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission’s records.

In Tennessee, several librarians and archivists were extremely helpful. Thanks to Kathryn

Bennett, Andrea Blackman, and Beth Odle of the Nashville Public Library; David Dwiggins

and Chantay Steptoe of the Nashville Tennessean photo archives; Jessie Carney Smith, the di-

rector of the John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library at Fisk University; Glenda Alvin of

the Tennessee State University Library; and Juanita Murray, director of Special Collections at

the Vanderbilt University Library. Thanks also to Fred Romanski of the National Archives II

in College Park, Maryland; Wilma Slate of the Wellesley College archives; Joellen El Bashir of

the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University; and the helpful librarians at

the Swarthmore College Library, the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, the Mugar Library

at Boston University, and the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University.

I am also heavily indebted to the staff of Oxford University Press. Peter Ginna has been

an exemplary editor, combining a firm hand with the patience of Job. He has shepherded this

project from the beginning with great skill and good humor, even during the darkest moments

when our common passion for the Red Sox produced severe anxiety and depression. I would

also like to thank two talented and gracious assistant editors, Furaha Norton and Laura Stickney,

who somehow managed to stay on top of all the deadlines and details, and Joellyn Ausanka,

who guided the production of the book with unflappable steadiness. I also had the good for-

tune of working with India Cooper, an extraordinarily gifted copyeditor who improved the

manuscript in numerous ways, and Jeffrey Ward, who added so much to the book by creating

imaginative, informative, and beautiful maps. Contributing to the Pivotal Moments in Ameri-

can History series has been an honor and a privilege, and I want to thank co-editors David

Hackett Fischer and Jim McPherson for creating such an innovative framework for historical

writing. Meeting the high standards set by these remarkably gifted historians was a daunting

challenge, but I will always be grateful for the opportunity to work with them on such an

important project. I only hope that in some measure I have justified their confidence in me.

As always, no written acknowledgment can do justice to the contributions of my family.

My parents, Oscar and Patricia Arsenault, my sister, Pam, my amazing daughters, Amelia and

Anne, and my wonderful wife, Kathy, have given me more love and support than anyone de-

serves. Kathy, who was crazy enough to join me on our own freedom ride/elopement thirty-

eight years ago, has borne the heaviest burden and made the greatest sacrifices. But through it

all she has maintained an uncommon grace, an incorruptible intellectual honesty, and an acute

sense of irony that has kept us rolling in the right direction. I owe her everything and more.

Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to John Hope Franklin. Our long friendship

has been one of the joys of my life, and nothing I can say here can adequately express my

respect and admiration for him. As noted on the dedication page, he is the original “freedom

writer.” A man of true wisdom and moral courage, he humbles us all.

Appendix:

Roster of Freedom Riders

Journey of Reconciliation — April 9–23, 1947

Name Race Sex Age Residence Occupation or Status

ADAMS, LOUIS W M Greensboro, NC Methodist minister; FOR

BANKS, DENNIS

adf

B M 20 Chicago, IL Jazz musician

BROMLEY, ERNEST

W M 35 Stonewall, NC Methodist minister; FOR

Born March 14, 1912. In 1991 he and 4 others were arrested for illegal entry and aiding and

abetting the destruction of public property after scaling the fence surrounding the White

House and pouring red dye in a fountain to protest the U.S. military presence in the Persian

Gulf. Died in Boston after a long battle with cancer on December 17, 1997, at the age of 85.

FELMET, JOSEPH W M 25 Asheville, NC Labor activist, Southern Workers

Defense League

Born in Asheville, NC, on May 31, 1921. Longtime labor journalist. Ran unsuccessfully for

Congress (NC) in 1976 and for the U.S. Senate (NC) in 1978. Died in Winston-Salem, NC,

on September 20, 1994, at the age of 73.

HOUSER, GEORGE

dgij

W M 31 New York, NY FOR activist; CORE executive

secretary

See chapters 1 and 2. Born in Cleveland, OH, on June 2, 1916. Co-founder of American

Committee on Africa. Currently lives in Pomona, NY.

JACK, HOMER

W M 31 Chicago, IL Unitarian minister; CORE

founder

Co-founder and associate director of the American Committee on Africa (1959–1960); co-

founder and executive director of the National Committee for Sane Nuclear Policy (1960–

1964); secretary-general of the NY–based World Conference on Religion and Peace

(1970–1983). Died on August 5, 1993, in Swarthmore, PA.

JOHNSON, ANDREW S. B M 21 Cincinnati, OH Law student, Univ. of Cincinnati

LYNN, CONRAD B M 39 New York, NY Attorney

Civil rights attorney who initiated a legal action to desegregate the U.S. armed forces. He

later represented Puerto Rican nationalists, Vietnam War resisters, Robert Williams and the

534 Appendix: Roster of Freedom Riders

Monroe, NC, NAACP, and H. Rap Brown of the Black Panthers, among other controversial

clients. Practiced law until the age of 87. Died on November 16, 1995.

NELSON, WALLACE

B M 38 Columbus, OH FOR peace activist; lecturer

Born in Arkansas in 1909. Son of a minister. Jailed twice as a conscientious objector during

World War II. CORE’s first field secretary, but refused to follow CORE policy of banning

suspected Communists from the organization. He and his wife, Juanita, later lived on an

organic farm in Deerfield, MA, without a phone or electricity. Died after a long battle with

cancer in May 2002, at the age of 93.

PECK, JAMES

W M 32 Stamford, CT Editor, Workers Defense League

News Bulletin

See chapters 1–5 and epilogue. See also his three books: We Who Would Not Kill,

Freedom Ride, and Underdogs vs. Upperdogs. Died July 12, 1993, at the age of 78.

RANDLE, WORTH

W M 31 Cincinnati, OH Biologist

Born on December 2, 1915. Noted naturalist and ornithologist; author of The Birds of

Southwestern Ohio (1953). Died in Watertown, NY, in June 1968, at the age of 52.

ROODENKO, IGAL

W M 30 New York, NY Printer; horticulturist

Born on February 8, 1917. Son of Ukranian Jewish immigrants. A lifelong pacifist who

organized protests against U.S. military involvement in Vietnam as early as 1963.

Following multiple arrests related to his anti-war stance, he was deported from Poland in

1987. Died of a heart attack on April 28, 1991, in New York City, at the age of 74.

RUSTIN, BAYARD B M 35 New York, NY FOR and AFSC activist; CORE

field secretary

See chapters 1 and 2 and D’Emilio, Lost Prophet. Died in New York City on August 24,

1987, at the age of 75.

STANLEY, EUGENE B M 30 Greensboro, NC Agronomy instructor, North

Carolina A&T College

Born in Ohio on November 3, 1916. Graduate of Ohio State Univ. (M.Ed, 1946). Leader of

the Vanguard League, a Columbus, OH, civil rights organization that merged with CORE in

the mid-1940s. Died on January 24, 1992, at the age of 75.

WORTHY, WILLIAM

cei

B M 25 New York, NY Journalist; New York Council for

a Permanent FEPC

Journalist and foreign correspondent for both the Baltimore Afro-American and CBS News.

Worthy traveled to China in 1956–1957 despite a U.S. travel ban. After traveling to Cuba

in 1961 without a passport, he received a prison sentence, but the decision was overturned

in 1964. CBS correspondent in Iran in 1981. Currently a research fellow at Howard Univ.