Throughout the summer of 1961 CORE and other civil rights organizations coordinated additional Freedom Rides, including two well-publicized trips from Washington, D.C., through South Carolina. The Freedom Rides were a series of bus trips through the South designed to force compliance with U.S. Supreme Court decisions of 1947 and 1960 banning segregation in interstate bus travel. On May 4, 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) launched the first Freedom Ride, sending an interracial group of thirteen on commercial buses from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, Louisiana. The route included stops in Rock Hill, Winnsboro, and Sumter, South Carolina. The South Carolina portion of the trip saw the first instance of violent southern opposition. At the Greyhound station in Rock Hill, white youths assaulted three of the Freedom Riders as one African American rider approached the “white” waiting room. Police intervened before any serious injuries occurred and made no arrests. The Freedom Rides passengers next arrived in Winnsboro, where police arrested and subsequently released black riders after they requested service at a lunch counter reserved for whites. No violence or arrests were reported at Sumter, the last stop in South Carolina before the riders entered Georgia. The most serious resistance occurred in Alabama, where whites burned one bus and assaulted riders on both, temporarily interrupting the journey. The violence in Alabama caught public attention and transformed the Freedom Rides into a national campaign. Throughout the summer of 1961 CORE and other civil rights organizations coordinated additional Freedom Rides, including two well-publicized trips from Washington, D.C., through South Carolina. The first, comprised of ministers and rabbis, stopped briefly in Sumter on the way to Tallahassee, Florida. The second, made up of professionals and representatives from organized labor, stopped overnight in Charleston before continuing on to St. Petersburg, Florida. Police escorted both Freedom Rides for most of the journey; riders in both used the facilities at bus stations in Charleston and Sumter without serious incident. The later Freedom Rides did not generate the same level of media coverage or public sympathy as CORE’s original project. Nevertheless, they constituted part of a larger campaign that forced the federal government to take action against segregated transportation. In September 1961, acting on U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy’s request, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued an order banning segregation in interstate travel facilities. Additional Freedom Rides tested southern compliance, reporting desegregated travel terminals in most southern communities by the end of 1962. Barnes, Catherine A. Journey from Jim Crow: The Desegregation of Southern Transit. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Lewis, John. Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998. Peck, James. Freedom Ride. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962.
On the night of 12 February 1965 Charles Perkins and 29 other students from Sydney University set off in a hired bus to raise awareness about Aboriginal issues and rights. They departed from Sydney that night to reach Orange on the 13th. On the same day they also covered the towns Wellington, where they conducted surveys with Indigenous and Non-Indigenous people to find out about the living conditions and Dubbo. The next place they visited was Gulargambone – 14th, where they conducted similar surveys to those at Wellington. They then reached Walgett where they conducted a protest, and targeted racial discrimination by picketing the Walgett RSL. It was also they place where they gained some good media coverage. The next place they visited was Collarenebri on the 16th. After that they conducted protests at Moore for 2 days, and then travelled to Boggabilla and Warwick on the 18th. They next visited Tenterfield Glen Innes, Inverell and finished their loop back at Moore on the 20th. Grafton was their next stop on the 21st, and then Lismore where they protested for once again 2 days. After Coffs-Harbour and Bowraville they protested for 1 to 2 days at Kempsey. They then covered Taree, Newcastle, and Wyong before ending their trip of 3200 km at Sydney on the 26th. All the places where the group travelled to, they encountered racism, and tried their best to protest and remove segregation from public places such as pools. They faced many problems and some were even beaten up. The map on the right provides a clear picture of the route taken by the SAFA.
The Freedom Riders were able to achieve all of their outcomes. They were successful in bringing attention to the poor state of the Aboriginal people, mostly due to the media attention they gained. Two years after the media coverage they gained in Walgett, in the national referendum of 1967, the Australian people voted overwhelmingly in favour of removing individual state control over the way Indigenous people were governed and treated. There was a 90.77% yes vote for the Aborigines and this eventually led to many needed reforms at federal level. Another outcome they accomplished was decreasing the social gap and discriminatory barriers between Aborigines and white people. A great example of this outcome being accomplished is the removal of the swimming pool ban. This removal meant that the Aboriginal and white people would be sharing one public facility, which eventually lead to the decreasing of the social and discriminatory barriers. In addition to this, a major achievement of the Freedom Riders was that they were able to encourage many Aboriginal people to resist discrimination and fight for their rights. They were able to inspire many Aboriginal people to stand up and fight, particularly those that had accepted discrimination as an inevitable part of their lives. This is what enabled them to support the changes that were required and needed for them, and take an active part in resisting racism. A minor achievement accomplished as a result of this was the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board publicly announcing that it would spend sixty-five thousand pounds on housing in Moree. In the end of their ride, the Freedom Riders had successfully stirred up the debate on the state of the Aboriginal affairs round Australia. With this came pressure from outside and within Australia to reform, and this debate was maintained for the 1967 referendum mentioned above. The Freedom Rides have also been credited with helping end the ‘White Australia’ policy. |