American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Delores Boyd, 1 of 2

Okay, just talk about why... I'm sorry, about what, what's your memory hearing about what happened with the Freedom Riders on Saturday, what happened? What I recall is that a busload of Black and whites traveling through the south to test public accommodations on the buses were met by a gang when they got to the Greyhound or the Trailways bus station, I believe at that time, and they were beaten, that law enforcement officers did not give them much protection at all. I knew that. And in preparation for the mass meeting, I recall there were telephone calls to various people saying there will be a mass meeting. There may have been flyers. I don't recall precisely, but the purpose of the mass meeting the next night was to show support for the Freedom Riders. We expected to see them, and we expected to hear from them firsthand on what had happened on the buses.

Do you remember when you... At this mass meeting... Talk about what a mass meeting was and the importance of a mass meeting. Mass meeting was an extension of church in the Black community. The mass meetings that occurred in Montgomery, Alabama in the late 50s and continued for at least another decade to 15 years started as a direct response to Jim Crow laws in Montgomery, Alabama. First of all, the Jim Crow laws on the city buses. After Rosa Parks was arrested, an organization called the Montgomery Improvement Association was established, established as a matter of fact inside my own church, the Mount Zion A.M.E. Zion Church. The first leader was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was that association which organized the year-long boycott. Even after the boycott succeeded, the association was still necessary.

And the way it operated was to have a mass meeting every Monday night. The purpose was to keep the community galvanized, to let the community know in what direction the civil rights movement was taking. And I recall as a child going to those Monday night mass meetings just as I went to church on Sunday, just as I went to regular school during the week. I was reared in a family which supported the civil rights movement, and thus the Monday night mass meeting was my introduction to civil rights protest. Can you guys cut for a minute? Yes. ...for us because after the bus boycotts, you know...You want me to start with defining a mass... Let's give it another try. Ok. Talk about mass meetings. The mass meeting I attended on the Sunday following the Freedom Riders massacre or assault at the bus station actually was an extension of mass

meetings which began after the boycott. The mass meeting was simply a worship service inside a church designed to keep the community politically active and supporting not only the boycott but civil rights protest through the Freedom Riders, through school segregation and desegregation efforts. Every church opened its doors just about in the Black community. Ministers preached. There was singing. There were reports from lawyers. There were many times witnesses to the protest. So in some ways a mass meeting was like a political church service. Absolutely. I might add that church services during the civil rights movements even on Sundays were politically tensed. It was so difficult to separate the movement from the worship experience.

But at those Monday night mass meetings, we could count on hearing from Dr. King, Reverend Abernathy, a lieutenant like Reverend Walker who might have come down from New York. All of those who were the leaders were there to keep us supporting whatever aspect of the movement was occurring then, and naturally for the Freedom Riders the effort was to get us behind supporting those students who were traveling through the deep south testing public accommodations laws on the transit, on the public transits. So this mass meeting was a little bit special, one because it was on a different day. Again my question is not going to be there so you have to tell me that, and Martin Luther King was flying in, you had the Freedom Riders, you had all these things, so why was this special? Oh, it was special because, as you say, number one, it was not a scheduled Monday night mass meeting. It was Sunday, and it was Sunday because the Saturday before the busload of Freedom Riders had been attacked, had been beaten. Many of them were still hospitalized

at St. Jude. We were told that those who were able would actually be there, and we were all wanting to see who are these courageous people, what do they look like? We knew that it was a mixed group, so we were there, number one, to support them. Many residents in the city had opened their homes to them, and this particular mass meeting would be the one which would decide whether Montgomery's buses and the Alabama's bus line would succumb to segregation or desegregation. Tell me about how it felt for you to go, you know, and why it was important for you to go and give me your age, we got an hour to go. Well, I am now 58. In 1961, I was 11, I had just reached 11 a month before. Remember that I was a child of those mass meetings. It was important that I go that night

because it was such an exciting happening in Montgomery. We'd seen pictures broadcast of just how brutally the riders had been beaten, so yes, I wanted to see them for myself. I wanted to be inside that church. I'd heard Dr. King before. I'd heard Reverend Abernathy, so the excitement wasn't just seeing the leaders, it was knowing what was going on. Great. Great. You got a problem? Just pauses. Oh we're fine, we're fine. That was when she was telling me her age now. You can just say in 1961. Ok. Alright. Okay. In 1961, I was 11 years old. In 1961, I was only 11. Did you get it that time, cause I talked over her? Again I'm sorry, that was all my fault. No problem, no problem. I'm talking over you. Do what you have to do. Was there fear? Do you remember being in fear? Not at all. The strange thing is there was no fear among the children or the adults. That church was packed. I was in the basement

with most of the children, I can't tell you how many were there but there had to be at least 100 of us. There were children younger than I and I was, as I said, only 11. There were teenagers. We were singing, we were looking, peeking outside at the mob, laughing at them, because quite frankly, with a child's heart, you don't understand fear as much. We knew that we were in danger, but we had been accustomed to danger, and we knew that our leaders were doing whatever was necessary to protect us, they would come back and report for example, the United States Marshals are there, or the National Guard is outside. You may have to spend the night but don't worry about it, so we sang songs. The choir sang, we heard preachers, we prayed a lot, and like children do, we congregated,

and we just laughed and talked. There was no fear at all in the group. I want to talk a little bit, we'll talk some more about the church, but... I'm going to change... Sure.