Freedom Riders Challenge Interstate Segregation

Beginning May 4, 1961, interracial groups of activists boarded interstate buses across the Deep South to challenge the non-enforcement of Supreme Court rulings banning segregation in interstate travel. Freedom Riders were met with firebombing of their bus in Anniston, Alabama, and brutal mob violence in Birmingham and Montgomery. The Kennedy administration's reluctant intervention and the resulting pressure led the Interstate Commerce Commission to enforce desegregation of interstate travel facilities in November 1961, a direct legal victory.