American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Marvin Rich, 1 of 3

you want to pay for five six any content went to ten nine ten tested lot like michael you are not in the least if it goes down so when it is that you are a longtime or and then you know so wallace is the difference between corps and some of the other groups or atlanta were talking about you know in six different korean yeah well i think when i went the washington university i joined the young double a cpa youth chapter and but the problem is it's seldom that have it seldom did anything that i wasn't impressed but i had been very active in be segregating washington be segregating ending discrimination at the university attended that blacks in those days and the

i met with people who had been active in core in chicago moved to st louis and they were active in the civil rights movement and they really seemed to be active and a wave that was very different and in fact when i joined corwin went through the effort to end segregation discrimination lack of service and a dime stores in new york and cyclists and we demonstrated every day every week on saturdays we head from a meeting of the membership every week let us go let loose police

sirens go home today and then you're gone now i don't have to bring up on that general terms you know what was the perception of the difference between courtney you know at that time you know it's also looking for you fifty years down the road you know in nineteen forty six talking about this point that when you do on the eve of the year and the freedom rides so yes you know at that point that the seals is just for me but yeah you were really young in italy c p you have all those who have skin and now you know fifty years later on those people below still polls well for two main difference is one core believed in non violent

direct action and the two went together philosophically and that is they also worth it very active when they did something they didn't write a letter that wasn't a court case they met weekly and eight demonstrated weekly sometimes more often for now the urban league had no members per se they had offices in various cities but there was no role for membership not and double a c p did have a membership and in some cases the court was very act that they cooperated very well in the end it's beginning of the sit ins in nineteen sixty eight dr george the simpsons in greensboro north carolina was a us by the demonstrators

to get help he had just read a pamphlet called cracking the color line put out by core he called in the core and we sent two staff members down to north carolina on but that cooperation he had the feeling that we knew something about what these guys were doing and he didn't feel icky and double it that was be active in their thing but he cooperated gamely if the and then frequently that happened and said it is an anomaly because so you mentioned one of one of the leaves of quick coral even nonviolent direct action what was there what is nonviolent direct it was at

twelve percent in this mean that oh ok you know what you know what the court will be as they say it's a mistake or what is nonviolent direct non violent direct action means taking action and that is involvement you know in a certain sense writing a letter is taking action on the other hand it doesn't people can put letters aside very quickly we believed in taking actions that people couldn't put aside we would after finding that a restaurant for example discriminate in and when i added that grows that we would send him horatio groups to sit and they would not leave or sometimes i remember it happened in may the man behind the

counter sharpened his knife in front of my nose for at least thirty minutes he was saying something to me and i was saying something to him we were saying something to him we were saying in spite of what you doing we will respect you but we will continue to work to fight until this dance until discrimination has gone in this situation that's it in a nutshell what did this and we did that training overall numbers and of at the beginning people weren't admitted unless they had finished certain amount of training and could meet with the members of the core group and demonstrate that their commitment and their understanding of non violent direct action

so at that point so you know in nineteen sixty so out of the civil rights groups and with its believe in in a nonviolent direct action we call the one of the more radical groups that well certainly everyone felt that way because they felt oh everyone felt that the core and smacked were there to radical groups and the urban league certainly respected people like what they did but they since they were not a player and essentially anas pm double a had chapters all over the country they were not committed nonviolent direct action in a certain sense their main thrust was legal action now they did other things

the head because they had big membership they were able to speak with some respect than they were entitled to speak and it be respected by others in the community and by others in the wider community but course mac n and the blade were the ones which involved people are all across the country now cora tended to get the more radical people was also an interracial ah that was the belief that was the commitment of its members and its officers on and that showed up in the actions of

everywhere were having those meeting yesterday and someone said that there were other things that that some of these nonviolent direct action had to do was to show to the general public that that segregation was not maintained by this kind of genteel agreement between blacks and one is that part of what you wanted was to make it clear that this wasn't that kind of genteel agreement that especially the south want to say it was young guests court was committed to action for instance in st louis when this

week the swimming pools were to be segregated you're aware of their rights and gun because people didn't go corky people to swim in the public swimming pools i was one of them and it's interesting cause i go and swim and lifeguard would spit at me and i didn't mind that i didn't mind the paper thing outside so much but i was scared to death because of a lousy swimmer and i had visions is it granite but they are going to their act i wouldn't come back at that todd moore out of the emotionally then going through the demonstrations with stay back never see it posted show up posters and stuff like that

they carried on the cyclist was very gerald l k smith i don't know if you remember him but it was a very nasty one segregationist during the fifties and sixties we were there the freedom ride you're right ok well they're two different things about the freedom rides the first freedom ride was nineteen forty seven it's called a journey of reconciliation it had on the way into the upper south it didn't go as far as north carolina

it certainly didn't go to georgia and alabama mississippi it was an interracial group sponsored by core was called the journey of reconciliation some of the people were ultimately arrested and byard rustin who has and who later became an assistant to martin luther king forest service to thirty days in the train getting in north carolina and he i wrote a memorandum which i read and influenced me and influence lot of other people it's like about fifteen page type written statement about what happened in that jail i'm dale three that was the first freedom ride and then there was

another one that was to be solved and that was after the irene morgan chase which said that the segregation on interstate transportation was illegal but that didn't change anything with the signs were taken down and then so that they with the freedom ride the journey of reconciliation was designed to publicize what the supreme court had done and to get people in their own communities to take action against it bishop did some good and can sum up needing states border states so well and st louis which is in windsor which is as far north as supporters they'd

swept been changed many hang on but in the sixties after right after the sit ins in greensboro north carolina chief core field secretaries were coming back to new york which was our headquarters and that was tom gieser and gordon caring time gay films blackie was active in the sit ins in rock hill south carolina awkward curious so white he had been active in pasadena core and his father was a minister they were coming back and they started talking because they took the bus and the buses were segregated and they said this is towing an appointment a switch he had just come from the supreme court which

reinforced morgan said specifically or the restaurants associated with the interstate commerce so it gave thirty hampton court and carrie you reported to the national action council which is corps executive committee really undone they did note jim former just been selected to be our executive director and he was supportive of this but he didn't know whether can win support in the executive committee the action council did people were excited to do it this meeting was in march and from then we started organizing on we publicize the us could be happened we got certain core members but we also got people who

have been active in snack a student nonviolent committee court meeting councilman dumb one of those was john lewis who subsequently was elected to congress and still a member of congress and has done wonderful work but he was a student at a theological school in nashville and jim lawson who was from a faculty member from one of the nashville schools i'm not sure which one right now and had been preaching nonviolence to that the kids there and if they were active in the baby and not a number of them are willing to go and then we had just others have picked up a blanket nine came from

arizona william again look for the consensus so calmly mission is ecologist this idea do we rewrite it poses we know defined i'm fixin of stuff twirling chapters we sent material to the black press we also notified and tried to assert that weren't anxious to get volunteers from snack and we did that later on we can talk in advance to people like warren wilkins whitney young but that was personally wasn't to get their organization committed considered an improvement well they thought that the tape going into the self

in significant numbers was more likely to create a physical injury than anything else i didn't feel we would succeed and desegregation of the buses and the bus terminals but they didn't think were doing right morass and again even if you could give me kisses invading my kid and had a lot of anger but maybe not the names of the people put the names of the organization and so what did the other organizations bmw sleepy which is because people all over the year in the un double a sleepy felt that this was likely to create a physical injury to the protest guns and unlikely to change it's discrimination at

lunch counters and in the buses leaving report was they did not want to participate so who's really was limiting freedom rides to it it was came out of the national action council meeting in march of nineteen sixty one work the court had said it was going to do this and the title that they gave it was freedom riders nineteen sixty one now obviously only the freedom ride with vaughn oh so if you explain to me it doesn't really know why it in and it seems that one of the things a

lot of the talk about is the one case that justice help with that the victims this case and in nineteen sixty eight and that was going to help the freedom rides will boycott case surgically restaurants in the terminals we're part of interstate commerce and therefore of discrimination was unconstitutional they said that but that didn't mean it was going to the otter and we knew that we had to play a role in doing that and we felt that if we did this freedom ride other people would be excited by it and they would change things in their own community oyelowo was undoubtedly the boynton case was

decided by the supreme court in nineteen sixty and it said that discrimination in service at lunch counters and bus terminals was unconstitutional it was a violation of the interstate commerce rights morgan case was the first case an episode basically that was a theme that said that it's the actual travel and buses head to being on an integrated places and it could not be blacks in the rear and white in france as being come one come all aluminum the

euros than his is there and in some ways you know what you were doing in and that's in some ways was that you know these laws will be passed right thing with james you know so you know we will not understand that you know that that was a castle they pick up when they're bowing and previously morgan kamal case was settled by the supreme court nothing changed and it was recorded because people didn't want to change nobody took the initiative and turn to make change possible are four core decided to move and we should this was wrong it's illegal it's immoral we are going to take a stand and

we them and want to demonstrate to people across the country but pleased that these constitutional decisions have been made by the supreme court and we want people to start speaking up so that other people will recognize the importance of making change you know by the way that that that when you advertise to try and recruit people for the riots that you know you mentioned that that there might be some what do we hear no idea and forty seven and some people were arrested and put in jail we thought that was likely but there might be

picketing who knows we didn't know what we knew the us would not be taken this change would not be may easily gone we certainly didn't anticipate burning buses on and we certainly didn't anticipate massive unrest because i think it was a week and what what did you think was going to happen if you didn't answer this time try to put yourself back in that live in marja remember was the planners of the nineteen sixty one when i went to his job at the burning bus and the other regions as when to stay back in can cremate three minutes into the question is as if you plan to drive to get his cancer he decided on his rights

he's a less than these last few analysts and he was saying you know you all crazy that these guys what they do what the what the court what the new person i didn't know a line i assumed that there'd be some arrests i assume third you know there might be somebody hitting somebody is those are things were happening all the time some similar things we didn't know we didn't think that they would be massive but we certainly will progress really anticipated in some ways what you all want you don't want what you want is in some ways arrests and he was

so he was actually what you're hearing your your wings we wanted publicity because we realize that most people don't know anything about the supreme court decisions are in the paper but that nobody no them and then faded from the paper very quickly and what we were trying to do was to get people to think about this decision and think about how they can play a role in implementing it was the same yes i think just searched for one of the lesson we in core were tended to be on the fringes of the south and florida and

kentucky and virginia we didn't have any real chapters in georgia and alabama or mississippi at that time we had some contacts in north carolina and virginia no we were lutherans and we just felt that leave people and family deep south faced a more difficult situation there were afraid for his bodily injury maybe their lives on hand were not willing to in the same way to get involved because they fear and with good reason