Oral History

Charles Sellers: From the Freedom Rides to the Free Speech Movement

In Oral History on 4 May 2009 tagged Free Speech with 5 comments

While working on my book, I started to think about the connections between the sit-ins and the Freedom Rides with the Free Speech and anti-war movements that followed – all student-powered, often student-led, almost always at odds with if not in defiance of establishment allies. When I met Freedom Rider Charles Sellers, I met a […]

Why ‘Kayo’ Hallinan Wasn’t a Freedom Rider

In Oral History, Violence on 26 February 2009 with Comments Off on Why ‘Kayo’ Hallinan Wasn’t a Freedom Rider

The Freedom Rides were a model of several management principles en vogue, at least until recently, in the new economy. The Riders were strategically nimble, adeptly abandoning their original destination of New Orleans to pursue “jail, no bail” in Jackson. They employed just-in-time inventory controls: within a day or two of their arrival in one […]

James Lawson: How the Nashville Movement Kept the Riders Riding

In Oral History on 25 July 2008 tagged Diane Nash, SNCC with Comments Off on James Lawson: How the Nashville Movement Kept the Riders Riding

The Freedom Rides began on May 4, 1961, when thirteen people left Washington, DC, on two buses, to test the compliance of Southern bus stations with a 1960 Supreme Court ruling outlawing segregation in those facilities. Their final destination was New Orleans, but after spectacular mob attacks on the riders in Anniston and Birmingham, AL,  […]