The 1961 Freedom Ride: On the Road to Freedom

Kyla Ayers Hager Mohamedein Roxanne Rabusa

Senior Division

Process Paper
Topic Choice
This years theme inspired us to research an event that impacted and changed America for the better. This school year as tenth graders, we are required to take African American History as a Social Studies course. Because of this, we decided to focus on revolutionary events in African American History. Immediately, we thought about the civil rights movement. Many of the events of the civil rights movement perfectly display this years NHD theme. Finally, we decided to focus on the 1961 CORE Freedom Ride; we could find ample amounts of information on the 1961 Freedom Ride. This was a topic that would easily keep our interest throughout the research and project development process.

Research Process
We began our research process by reading about the 1961 CORE Freedom Ride in encyclopedias. Researching the ride in the encyclopedias helped us to gather background information on the topic; soon, we were able to create a simple outline of the information that we found. We went to the library and gathered information from books dedicated to the Freedom Ride. We took trips to the Temple Universitys Urban Archives and Blockson Collection, where we found newspaper clippings and more books about the ride. We also used ProQuest, an online historical newspaper archive, to gather newspaper clippings. After doing these things, we combined our findings and created a more in depth outline of research on the 1961 Freedom Ride for our project. Later, we interviewed Congressman John Lewis, a former Freedom Rider. This

interview helped us to better understand more about the revolutionary aspects of the Freedom Ride, the attacks on the Riders, and the reforms influenced by the Freedom Ride.

Project Development
We chose the web site category because it created an easy way for us to display text and multimedia together in an organized manner. Our website was created using Weebly. Using the outline we designed, we organized all of our research onto the site. We used pictures, videos, and other multimedia from other websites, edited them, and applied them to our site. We conducted a phone interview with former Freedom Rider, Congressman John Lewis. We attached excerpts of the interview to our website.

Relationship to the NHD Theme

This years NHD theme is Revolution, Reaction, and Reform. The journey of the 1961 CORE Freedom Ride fits this theme perfectly. The Freedom Ride was a revolution against the discriminatory Jim Crow Laws that restricted the freedom of the African Americans. The Riders ignored and rebelled against signs that promoted the segregation of interstate travel facilities. The actions of the riders sparked reactions from people all over America. While some became supporters of the Riders, others reacted violently to the Freedom Ride; mobs viciously attacked the Riders when they arrived in their towns. Although the Freedom Riders experienced attack after attack, they succeeded in influencing reforms that permanently desegregated interstate travel facilities.