Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice

by Raymond Arsenault

Overview

The saga of the Freedom Rides is an improbable, almost unbelievable story. In the course of six months in 1961, four hundred and fifty Freedom Riders expanded the realm of the possible in American politics, redefining the limits of dissent and setting the stage for the civil rights movement. In this new version of his encyclopedic Freedom Riders, Raymond Arsenault offers a significantly condensed and tautly written account. With characters and plot lines rivaling those of the most imaginative fiction, this is a tale of heroic sacrifice and unexpected triumph. Arsenault recounts how a group of volunteers—blacks and whites—came together to travel from Washington DC through the Deep South, defying Jim Crow laws in buses and terminals and putting their lives on the line for racial justice. News photographers captured the violence in Montgomery, shocking the nation and sparking a crisis in the Kennedy administration. Here are the key players—their fears and courage, their determination and second thoughts, and the agonizing choices they faced as they took on Jim Crow—and triumphed.

Winner of the Owsley Prize

Publication is timed to coincide with the airing of the American Experience miniseries documenting the Freedom Rides

"Arsenault brings vividly to life a defining moment in modern American history."
—Eric Foner, The New York Times Book Review

"Authoritative, compelling history."
—William Grimes, The New York Times

"For those interested in understanding 20th-century America, this is an essential book."
—Roger Wilkins, Washington Post Book World

"Arsenault's record of strategy sessions, church vigils, bloody assaults, mass arrests, political maneuverings and personal anguish captures the mood and the turmoil, the excitement and the confusion of the movement and the time."
—Michael Kenney, The Boston Globe

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199754311
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	03/11/2011
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Raymond Arsenault is John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg.

Table of Contents

PLEASE NOTE: this TOC is for the unabridged edition.

List of Maps
Editors' Note
Preface
1 You Don't Have To Ride Jim Crow
2 Beside the Weary Road
3 Hallelujah! I'm A-Travelin'
4 Alabama Bound
5 Get on Board, Little Children
6 If You Miss Me From the Back of the Bus
7 Freedom's Coming and It Won't Be Long
8 Make Me a Captive, Lord
9 Ain't Gonna Let No Jail House Turn Me 'Round
10 Woke Up This Morning with My Mind on Freedom
11 Oh, Freedom
Epilogue: Glory Bound
Appendix: Roster of Freedom Riders
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Drawing on personal papers, F.B.I. files, and interviews with more than 200 participants in the rides, Arsenault brings vividly to life a defining moment in modern American history.... Rescues from obscurity the men and women who, at great personal risk, rode public buses into the South in order to challenge segregation in interstate travel.... Relates the story of the first Freedom Ride and the more than 60 that followed in dramatic, often moving detail."—Eric Foner, The New York Times Book Review

"Authoritative, compelling history.... This is a story that only benefits from Mr. Arsenault's deliberately slowed-down narration. Moment by moment, he recreates the sense of crisis, and the terrifying threat of violence that haunted the first Freedom Riders, and their waves of successors, every mile of the way through the Deep South. He skillfully puts into order a bewildering series of events and leads the reader, painstakingly, through the political complexities of the time. Perhaps his greatest achievement is to show, through a wealth of detail, just how contested every inch of terrain was, and how uncertain the outcome, as the Freedom Riders pressed forward, hundreds of them filling Southern jails."—William Grimes, The New York Times

"For those interested in understanding 20th-century America, this is an essential book.... In his dramatic and exhaustive account of the Freedom Riders, Arsenault makes a persuasive case that the idealism, faith, ingenuity and incredible courage of a relatively small group of Americans—both white and black—lit a fuse in 1961 that drew a reluctant federal government into the struggle—and also enlarged, energized and solidified (more or less) the hitherto fragmented civil rights movement.... Arsenault tells the story in wonderfully rich detail. He explains how young people, knowing the brutality and danger that others had faced, nevertheless came to replace them—in wave after wave—to ride dangerous roads, to face lawless lawmen, to withstand the fury of racist mobs, to endure the squalor and danger of Southern jails—even the dreaded Parchman Farm in Mississippi."—Roger Wilkins, Washington Post Book World

"The Freedom Rides brought onto the national stage the civil rights struggle and those who would play leading roles in it.... Arsenault chronicles the Freedom Rides with a mosaic of what may appear daunting detail. But delving into Arsenault's account, it becomes clear that his record of strategy sessions, church vigils, bloody assaults, mass arrests, political maneuverings and personal anguish captures the mood and the turmoil, the excitement and the confusion of the movement and the time."—Michael Kenney, The Boston Globe

From the Publisher

This is a story that only benefits from Mr. Arsenault's deliberately slowed-down narration. Moment by moment, he recreates the sense of crisis, and the terrifying threat of violence that haunted the first Freedom Riders, and their waves of successors, every mile of the way through the Deep South. He skillfully puts into order a bewildering series of events and leads the reader, painstakingly, through the political complexities of the time. Perhaps his greatest achievement is to show, through a wealth of detail, just how contested every inch of terrain was, and how uncertain the outcome, as the Freedom Riders pressed forward, hundreds of them filling Southern jails.
— The New York Times

William Grimes

… I entirely agree with a statement made by my former Justice Department colleague the late sociologist James Laue, and quoted by Arsenault: "The national mobilization of conscience which had begun in Montgomery and grown in 1960 reached full bloom with the Freedom Rides." To find out how that happened, one must read Arsenault's superb rendering of that great saga. For those interested in understanding 20th-century America, this is an essential book.
— The Washington Post

Roger Wilkins