American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Gordon Carey, 3 of 3

you were the thing so well that business is is that the people he says the warrant or is it that is a possible way and i don't think it's possible though that there's nobody that nobody could see me and told him about it and i suspect the arsenal was right in suggesting that we know that the key to keeping it as it really really mad at him if he took the nude hot in advance or hairstyle you know what is that you're chatting up until the rule of them is he right

we informed the justice department about the fact that we were going to be having these rights whether who we notified iowa i can't tell you but i i do know that's simeon booker talk to robert kennedy just before the rise and him and told him about it all i don't know whether other people like harris wofford and saw a new modern art is it possible that image is a hassle of it just didn't understand you know the import of those why a bobby kennedy seems not to understand or even know about the freedom rides for as he claimed i suppose could abandon home that he home didn't understand the import of that but i

suspect it was wishful thinking i i think that he he ed did a lot to two to donald water that he will you heed the worst it will go away it was a we were being so you get those years ago is that what i suspect that bobby kennedy oh just having no experience into something new on the job on had other things on his mind and simply didn't didn't take this seriously he probably had no

idea that that are going to cause a big big uproar the postseason courses i got a call from was in my apartment in new york i got a call from jim farmer who have of course left the rides to be at his father's funeral and he called me and he told me that things were in turmoil down there and then jim peck who was in charge of the freedom was at that point once was for a badly injured in an and he just

felt that i should go down there and see what i can do to help so i know we're not anxious to go to birmingham at that point having had that do that could have had ever bring and the day after a busted and burned in anniston was now my favorite idea doing something but damn i got on a plane i flew down to birmingham and done and all was it was it was met by by by shells worst people at the airport in and taken to sucks full moon well i got to birmingham beat the mood was at best a summer home generally people wanted to continue the ride and they wanted to go

on they wanted to catch a bus to from from birmingham to montgomery and continue on toward your lungs blood there's also an understanding that people have been reading brutally beaten and birmingham the day i did it before i got there a jam packed in particular whistle was was was was mercilessly beaten had fifty some stitches in his head and he looked like he should be in a hospital in soweto getting back on a bus and but it it's amazing by and large the group wanted to go on they were that they were ready to continue including some of those that were the most was badly hurt so we're going to see it's immediate obvious that the normal bus is going to be leaving

birmingham anytime soon a home they could get a driver home video bp attorney general by that time was very actively involved in conversations with home fred shuttlesworth and others and he was saying women and can you get a driver to drive a bus of a lot of birmingham him and he did he couldn't believe it and they couldn't under the bus baby they decided to grow it was decided by the group that they would have to fly because there was no way they could just stay forever in miami and their bus terminal and it didn't appear that any bus driver in a bus company was about to take us anywhere so all greed and jim peck bore a block of tickets

on eastern flight we got on the plane the parent after sitting on the plane for a long time we finally told that the plane couldn't fly could go and we were to get off that plane and go back to the terminal home this was an expert did and there was still a mom out there between us and the terminal and we got off the plane we we we got our baggage and the mob was pretty quiet at that point there were less a mob there was a group of all of men out there we're hostile to us and art of genevieve hughes by the hand

and we walked for that group of men and we got there and said shoot me walking truly we walked right through the whole group or three without without incident back to the show we were astounded when protests started and we don't know how to what extent the dvd police by that time had decided that they were going would any more trouble or pork or whatever but to rebuild but we we walked through that crowd back to the terminal and then of course finally the plane carrying johnson and paula dean kamen and we were able to get on that plane and flew directly to more loans well there's a clear is that at this point in your time you leave and you know and laughter by the time we we were fully aware that the

liberal buses leaving burning oven to have preferred had it set itself on and we just knew that we we we had to leave some now and it was pretty unbelievable that we couldn't get a plane to fly zone either the uses of pilot wooden float plane or the only airline wouldn't take us or the you know whenever we didn't know what the problems were but no plane was willing to take us our home so we really had to get out somehow and that was funny wins one simple or did arrive at the at the behest of the attorney general before that coffee you know well now in the bus station while we were there we were

sweeter still tried in the report are still thinking of trying to get a bus out until we determine an old boss would take us at that point is when we said okay we can read we can go on and obviously only we can write it we can get in a bus so that point we'd and we had it we had to try to fly out on her that shows that and then he does that in two semi woe to go bust fred shuttlesworth all arranged for a is so the kids of his church to to take us back to the bus station and even that was so fraught with danger but we dig into the bus station and we didn't encounter any real violence at the bus station we weren't quite sure who was where who was

who they were people around there that were supposed to be actually i people will we can identify regionally they were so there was a great deal of uncle of fear and confusion at that point because we we weren't sure whether we were going to be attacked or or what was going to happen we were sort of the stranded there in the bus station you're welcome whoa whoa whoa in latin america it's a question that i'm not sure you

know i didn't get into though it will offer so now what we're in a once we were in in your lungs we were there for several days and a lot of discussion about what we're going to do and how we're going to proceed and i think that the core and stick together the two were musicians pretty much decided that that one where another they would have to be contained big push for this came from from from jim devil and diane nash in that intensity and they noticed a slick was very anxious due to keep things going the core i guess was a little bit more reticent we weren't quite sure at that point but the general

idea was a yes we got to continue somehow and then people began organizing spontaneous bus trips down there was a spontaneous there were allegedly by snicker by an individual core chapter but they were not at that point don nationally buy them buy buy national corps and the thing became the continuation of readers became kind of an ad hoc spontaneous movement of people getting on buses heading south and saying they're really going to go to jail if necessary home and tom that's that was the swelling of the freedom of that that was when people began going to prison and jim farmer was back on the bus when i went to prison pen and pencil it seems like that he knows almost that that in some ways without even get in inland when

it was in some ways when she was absolutely oh i did this is really a moment when the riots are people who and we had no way of knowing that but what was going to happen after after we stop the riot in worlds but what we what happened in fact it was really we had stalked and our fire and we had we had gotten out of a movement going there was beyond us and a brand that transcended what we were doing and people over the country began to wanna get on freedom buses and heading to jackson mississippi when they went to visit him

i think by that time jackson in jackson they promote decided that it was all a violent so what they did very critical of the bus he recently arrested or you had to take him to prison so you just went from being busted him to prison then they brought people in jail fb so many years you know the rise in the sclc's problem is scan unit well the driving force to continue to arise was certainly these was released neck stood not well according to many and and core harm and i personally had conversations with with bobby kennedy when he was trying to talk as olive at home and until the cd and he would

like to have us a real difficult period or whatever and that just didn't seem reasonable to us because cooling off which probably means of stopping and wheat and was stopped we felt like we have something here that can be good for the nation and it should continue i'm not sure about the activities of the southern christian leadership conference a bubble what their attitude was made and somewhat ambiguous and they made made them people within this sclc who i really felt like it should go on and others who were quite sure about at home well you know what you know what you can do and at

what was eighty one and what we're going to do that bobby kennedy simply want us to stop home he felt like yo that they had there been enough violence enough problems etc and that somehow if we reverted to the courts and two and things could be resolved until i'm there we were pretty stubborn and my conversation with him i wasn't really willing to discuss the name of the remedy the courts simply pretty much decided among when i was speaking for court to not just for myself but that data when we needed to we need to continue and because of if i wasn't over an enemy which we just couldn't give up at that point you're going to see and what snow yes yes yeah but why would see bobby kennedy and

i think that one time i went to his office and was it was in connection with with with lower than earlier thing i don't think i did at that point we don't think that was still think that was a new guard the freedom of those earlier but that mm hmm so joe you know what well there was an organization called the yellow skin like or dating committee consisting of of snack sclc encore and the young and then didn't movement in tennessee and though we have almost as representatives went to meet in the attorney

general's office to talk about the freedom rides and damn he he are again used the same arguments about whether the courts and in the sort of thing and trying to try to talk us in and being sensible about this about this issue om we're the members fourteen of the committee gossett pretty angry and i thought he was going to approach the attorney general and then you go up and hammerstein ii next i literally grabbed a hold of missouri women know let's let him and less control parts of whiskey oh but they are anywhere that the fruit was meeting attended that didn't result in anything but it didn't i didn't know there were determination at all and listen this run this time as marco ruiz is

that isn't there is a deal to call and that hour was up on a sunday just before one of our meetings of the freedom according committee and this time it was in jackson mississippi just before that meeting claude said and wrote an article for beijing york times saying that the freedom rides were being called off and joe i don't know where he got the information from but we quickly got on the phone with farmer other members of the of the of the organization and decided that women at home we're cordial and i would call him often forgotten what anybody else does

work and gordon continue the freedom rides and so the following day energy and on that monday of all of the meeting hall at the end of our core neatly meeting an entity in jackson oh we held a press conference and probably because the sclc was somewhat ambiguous about this whole issue i was appointed as as the spokesman for the very unlikely spokesman for the fund for the movement in the us are either i announced that that the freedom rides were continuing and that they were not going to be called off and done all this risk then after after i made that statement like questions were asked after that i didn't say very much other members of the of the group talked about it's under an image became very clear that the that we were continuing to rise in him and gone

this is he's been home the freedom rides i think were responsible for moving the civil rights movement from the upper south into the deep south there was the main result of the freedom rides to energize the black community home or to college students in in in the deep south and get them home for dissipating in an inmate in all kinds of civil rights activities it's called you know a country song

you know and so and the other the other for the other thing the freedom rides did was to awaken the the nation to have to to the brutality that was going on in some of the southern states and there's a great deal of art form of ignorance on the part of of people throughout the country on what would we be like oh and in the deep south of the regular disbelief no one would've believed in advance that i'm always controlled burn a boss or be people partied death in an m in a bus station i'm so i think in addition to awakening the the movie

the young people and in the south young black students primarily it also awakened the nation to the to the fact that the gee whiz things are not as they should be one reason and one of his