Freedom Riders get degrees at TSU today
Activists were expelled in 1961
By JENNIFER BROOKS • Staff Writer • September 18, 2008
They set out to make the world a better place and paid the price.
Today, Tennessee State University honors 14 former students who risked everything — their lives, their reputations and their educations — when they boarded a bus in 1961 and joined the Freedom Ride.
They challenged a culture where buses, trains and planes had separate white and "colored" seating areas. For their pains, they were beaten, threatened, arrested and finally, expelled from school.
Today's TSU students are too young to remember an America with black and white drinking fountains, or black and white seats on the bus.
For that, they can thank people like Catherine Burks Brooks, Pauline Knight, Etta Simpson Ray, Frances Wilson, Frederick Leonard, Larry Hunter, Ernest "Rip" Patton, Clarence Wright, William Harbour, William Mitchell, Mary Jane Smith, Allen Cason, Lester McKinnie and Charles Butler. Ten will receive diplomas today. Four of them will be honored posthumously.
"One must always give recognition to those who paved the way for successful modern-day African-Americans such as myself," said Greg Duckett, a member of the Tennessee Board of Regents who pushed for special recognition for the TSU Freedom Riders.
Getting the Freedom Riders that recognition wasn't easy. The Board of Regents originally balked and refused to approve the honorary doctorates, but changed their vote in the face of public pressure.
Backlash was intense
Hundreds of young people, men and women, black and white, from every corner of the country, participated in the Freedom Ride. But without the Nashville activists, the entire movement might have faltered when violent attackers torched one of the buses and sent riders to the hospital, beaten senseless.
In the face of such a brutal backlash, even the Freedom Riders' allies were ready to call off the nonviolent protest. Instead, Nashville organizers stepped forward and volunteered to join the ride in Alabama and press forward.
"Without that sort of immediate response, that willingness to get involved after everything that happened, that could have been the end of it right there," said Eric Etheridge, author of Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders.
Etheridge dug up old arrest photos of the hundreds of Freedom Riders who were jailed during their attempts to desegregate the bus stations, train stations and airports along their routes. His book pairs these 47-year-old mug shots with personal accounts and pictures of the Freedom Riders today.
"They faced opposition not only from the state of Alabama, and the Klan and the mobs, but even among their allies in the civil rights movement, the Democrats, the white liberals, there was a lot of opposition to the Freedom Ride," he said. Some worried that the Freedom Riders were doing more harm than good by provoking the segregationists on their home turf. "It was a movement that was nonviolent, but very much about direct action."
For the TSU riders, the journey ended in Jackson, Miss., where they were thrown in jail and chose to remain to fight their case, rather than make bail. Eventually, they would be joined by hundreds of other Freedom Riders who flooded into Jackson's bus terminals, airports and train stations — and were all jailed in turn.
TSU, then known as Tennessee A&I, delivered the students' expulsion letters to their jail cells. Today, the university makes amends.
"If they were willing to risk life and limb to ensure the future for us," Duckett said, "then the burden is on us to take advantage of these opportunities."
Contact Jennifer Brooks at 615-259-8892 or jabrooks@tennessean.com.
Activists were expelled in 1961
By JENNIFER BROOKS • Staff Writer • September 18, 2008
They set out to make the world a better place and paid the price.
Today, Tennessee State University honors 14 former students who risked everything — their lives, their reputations and their educations — when they boarded a bus in 1961 and joined the Freedom Ride.
They challenged a culture where buses, trains and planes had separate white and "colored" seating areas. For their pains, they were beaten, threatened, arrested and finally, expelled from school.
Today's TSU students are too young to remember an America with black and white drinking fountains, or black and white seats on the bus.
For that, they can thank people like Catherine Burks Brooks, Pauline Knight, Etta Simpson Ray, Frances Wilson, Frederick Leonard, Larry Hunter, Ernest "Rip" Patton, Clarence Wright, William Harbour, William Mitchell, Mary Jane Smith, Allen Cason, Lester McKinnie and Charles Butler. Ten will receive diplomas today. Four of them will be honored posthumously.
"One must always give recognition to those who paved the way for successful modern-day African-Americans such as myself," said Greg Duckett, a member of the Tennessee Board of Regents who pushed for special recognition for the TSU Freedom Riders.
Getting the Freedom Riders that recognition wasn't easy. The Board of Regents originally balked and refused to approve the honorary doctorates, but changed their vote in the face of public pressure.
Backlash was intense
Hundreds of young people, men and women, black and white, from every corner of the country, participated in the Freedom Ride. But without the Nashville activists, the entire movement might have faltered when violent attackers torched one of the buses and sent riders to the hospital, beaten senseless.
In the face of such a brutal backlash, even the Freedom Riders' allies were ready to call off the nonviolent protest. Instead, Nashville organizers stepped forward and volunteered to join the ride in Alabama and press forward.
"Without that sort of immediate response, that willingness to get involved after everything that happened, that could have been the end of it right there," said Eric Etheridge, author of Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders.
Etheridge dug up old arrest photos of the hundreds of Freedom Riders who were jailed during their attempts to desegregate the bus stations, train stations and airports along their routes. His book pairs these 47-year-old mug shots with personal accounts and pictures of the Freedom Riders today.
"They faced opposition not only from the state of Alabama, and the Klan and the mobs, but even among their allies in the civil rights movement, the Democrats, the white liberals, there was a lot of opposition to the Freedom Ride," he said. Some worried that the Freedom Riders were doing more harm than good by provoking the segregationists on their home turf. "It was a movement that was nonviolent, but very much about direct action."
For the TSU riders, the journey ended in Jackson, Miss., where they were thrown in jail and chose to remain to fight their case, rather than make bail. Eventually, they would be joined by hundreds of other Freedom Riders who flooded into Jackson's bus terminals, airports and train stations — and were all jailed in turn.
TSU, then known as Tennessee A&I, delivered the students' expulsion letters to their jail cells. Today, the university makes amends.
"If they were willing to risk life and limb to ensure the future for us," Duckett said, "then the burden is on us to take advantage of these opportunities."
Contact Jennifer Brooks at 615-259-8892 or jabrooks@tennessean.com.
