American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Rebecca Diane McWhorter, 1 of 4

some eighty minute eh like rephrase it in shorter let's start with the family i feel really what we're doing a lot more a heart attack on do i do a background in the fellowship of reconciliation core disease i can't be out with the journey of reconciliation was course first freedom ride and court had been founded out of the fellowship of reconciliation a sort of the somme organization to promote integration through gun the unmet that's so their first big thing was this i direct action during reconciliation where atticus twelve riders are it went through the upper south unit at it was to go online on regular busses but that wright integrated and acidic was going come in response to the irene morgan decision at the supreme court which desegregated interstate travel on buses and trains and on sunday the rest is that

as with the sense with the riots were not breaking the law to restore testing it so i may turn out that if they didn't get it neeley create a lot of strain a drawing and by your trust and he was one of the organizers and one of the great activists coming out of the sort of a passive in pacifist marxist left that that court you know i get to be a journey and yes you heard that right and they're so isolated just a dramatization and there's dew are in order but as a server i said do is turn the kora know yet i am or to carry more in a i said i said forget that ice do and say test them or indecision organization well yeah it is that's a day journey reconciliation

was actually course first three freedom ride and it took place in nineteen forty seven and cora had been founded out of the fellowship of reconciliation which was this sort of group of pacifist left wingers and the interest on his left and on the court was to apply gandhi impossible to address direct action to ending segregation so their first big direct action a vet was the journey of reconciliation in any way was was twelve mixed race where writers of the for races decided that they were going to take a greater bus through the upper south to test a recent supreme court decision which outlawed serious eating on interstate bus and train travel and it didn't really a cremation started are disappointed ii byard rustin who was one of the organizers was arrested nor july minute it was on a chain gang for twenty two days for that was they didn't get a lot of attention and nine and james packer was another one of the the lefties an eye on that white man from a very privileged family on this trip it

with issues are surprised at how tyler and the bus drivers were donated really care and the thing that has struck hamlet was when they were in court that time that he was amazed and in the southern koreans that they swore black and white when this isn't on different bible so even though even that even christianity was segregated at that level they said it was well people like me who are from alabama it really don't consider the upper south the real south i have it i have a big cannabis cup a colonial tradition you know the only one of the thirteen original colonies that's in the deep south which is i had a surprise and the south in georgia was of course the penal colony and so we we consider that really deep southerners consider the io the upper south to civilize so maybe yeah why

is that and he put it we gotta get into this with birmingham just brings a segregated bet on it in a silly like a head how segregation is is in these areas why there's norman realized there is listening on line i that i had that gear is for this expression that the black people got lighter the further north you that so in virginia you could see a lot of the results of the message a nation of on the plantations which was a common and you know less of that in the deep south said there had been a lot of i've sort of the show is a blended family is already in the north that that you don't see so much of his and the

south isn't what you need any more like well you are really in the fifties sixties well beyond and the other thing was in the deep south the black population was controlled so stringently and black man just grew up knowing that you cannot meet the i am a white woman on that if you are a white person oppression inside walk he stepped off on and rural communities it was fairly commonplace for white and circle color children to play together up until a certain point i was in which was right before puberty and after that there there was no contact there behind all this means either their lender lot of reasons for segregation an endless river i'm marci in the tradition but

who live it would be that it was it's all about economics on now my my position is that if it had not worked economically it would not have existed and you see that when it stopped working economically it stopped existing however and in order for something that for culture to sign onto to something that kind of crazy when you look at really get it there has to be a huge irrational emotional component and underneath that in the south was the fear of message a nation on its its serve our constant about the mingling of bodily fluids so against other things where the whites are most five acre things like home washing here say so they're always separate white and black hair dressers and undertaker's you never ever whites didn't handle black bodies the embalming fluids on and of course an ex and swimming holes and water fountains so so that was sort of irrational fear that the fear of contamination the fear the ultimate fear of

producing the so called minor child so that was a bit of a the buzzword was nonetheless asian and that's that's why for example the analyst at first was that when they were challenging segregated education they started out gratis go it's because they started out with married plainest because it in water raise the specter of the races i am kneeling on intimate terms and that's why they were so afraid i have an education if printers to level because a new black's like when children grew up together as friends then then the next step would be profitably friends are you doing and there's a way to go he's seeing more or less what are yeah well that sort of anti you saw

this on and then in the days of the communist party that people always thought that the purpose was for black man to have sexual access to white women so white women who were for the movement were always sneers think you know women of low morals and on i and you know that they were that they were sleeping with black man and on and in the navy men and then then you know they were there all these rivers for example during the selma march of their orgies on the side of the road when they were on the march and and this was just sort of that thing that captivated the white tent the white people's attention that that that's what that was beneath everything and course we think about it'd also a former social controls lynching and so you have to have some a taboo that justified the us and so it's a white people's minds it was you know black a black man raping a white woman and i justified any kind of retaliation so that was sort of the foundation of

this of people feeling entitled to enforce this syria dakota by any means necessary and even an entire community turning out to essentially barbecue a man and take pictures and send around seven years that you know that they fear of essential access to the to the white woman was common lizza at the basis of that are ways to ride a bus so how what is that he's here well you know the other the other three weird i'm taboo was again sitting down together as in a kind of social equals so so that's why you you see the taboo against eating together even though we did a rational part of it is that that black cooks cook most of white people get out of white enlisted i could've done anything they could a poison that can you spin them ann and yet just had to have it

against sitting in a city down on the table either to come far or to eat now what i favor stories is that this southerly dealer told was of a white woman in georgia who had had a child with a black man and she put him in an orphanage and she would go and visit him on sundays that hit her love child with it with spider man and as a finely the audio the when he really work and he said would you want to sit down and have lunch with your son and she said why eight with a new perk i just couldn't and that to me perfectly describes how crazy this whole thing is that she had been at her child and yet she cannot violate just haven't now what the others historically say that that white people are afraid of blacks and you know to the extent that they are afraid of the black

retribution that they have invited that's probably true but what really amazing tradition work was the white people's fear of each other and the kind of social reprisals and possibly body leader reprisals that would occur if you stepped outside on their own the coat and sit there for one day and you know the worst thing a white priest that the conjuring that zero was nigger lover and that was a way they really kept whites in line ally why people knew that segregation was wrong and they they knew that the bible is wrong according to the bible i am and what really kept them from doing everything was the fear of you know losing social relationships but losing money being boycotted and an outsider so what happened to to white people who have good writing for it and white label spirit another way it

gets us a just the emotional part and so on and as it does it so i guess if you are rational way i know what people might think that that what that white people are afraid of blacks i've certainly afraid of inviting retaliation that they hadn't that they pack dessert on that and actually i'm more on sort of practical pragmatic explanation of it is that whites were afraid of each other they were afraid of social ostracism economic reprisals if they stepped outside of a lot of the racial code in the south a lot of people knew it was wrong and they said because she was wrong because it it just directly violated their their religious principles and so on that's it was really the fear of each other as much is that fear of a black people that they're on in force this this system and it is a

really historic move on now journey ended at the south carolina courts in the state uses of the pictures in one year's white guy riding a bus or you know what i mean well if it were my favorite character was about the upper south unit these were these were so peaceful in the upper south that when a writer said they heard we were coming in and they defecate and when the riders got atlanta they were greeted by a monolithic king's organization and king in his executor whitey walker and a light you want to reassure them that when they cross the state line in alabama things would be considerably different and sure enough i got an a stand and the bus driver at it as and i would talk to and the bus driver is coming in they did it in the in the uk from the us and yet and yet

that the bus driver who's driving the greyhound bus from atlanta to to birmingham just stuck in anniston a bus driver coming from the opposite direction tell that there was a mob waiting for me on the road and now the it would have to understand is you know i think a lot of people have this misimpression that segregation was about you know bags and rednecks be upon black people would actually it was this totalitarian system that was enforced it out by the law by the elected officials and by most notably by the police so what happens when they get it as soon as that the policemen were conferring with the members of miles on and i like to think that the place that would apply to warren brown that sort of to me you know they see that in nazi germany but they were you know they were conferring with it with the year with the members of the mob in the bus station and one of them fell such impunity about doing what everyone ate it at that he'd lay down from the bus to keep it from leaving the day an arm he later told an fbi

agent that he had an epileptic seizure since it is just plain digit example of how they just telling them to do anything to them they can say whatever they want and they can make the biggest lie they will they replace the police is sort of is it a holiday and the client is that it basically is this an occasion was a lot of asians are a lot of tech savvy i once lynching came to it and then the form of social can control iran i was alleging came to an end which it had sort of died out in the forties the form of social control was police brutality the police were telling was a given and a lot of these black america my hands are closer with a plea could tell he was just a given a lot of the southern communities have a very large

black minority if not a black majority and sometimes yes her cells helped head the white minority in some cases it can happen in her second trial and the the answers please do tell it any black person could be you know arrested for doing anything so in birmingham there was a murderous two was stop just for driving while black and then he was beaten up by the policemen who can explain to him that he had said and thats right answer that yes or an independent witness said what we can put anything we want any black or so they say we don't have any reason enough screeners ended up sir that that goal of blacks lived in and legitimate fear of the police and that's why on some of the place and i interviewed told me that they you know that they did produce a complete plays retelling these critically than men on and they had regrets ventilator but that was just that was just the nature of the police code of time so and obviously

going in and said that the police didn't hear what was going on out the policeman's position was that they were for segregation and sometimes they had to rely on the monkey to do things that they were constitutionally forbidden to do so they were happy to have the clinically and doing their usually work for them so you know that's just that was just normal yes ma yeah well we can do it we can really get to the trendy thing with the police in birmingham because i was actually a deal that was made with the korean yesterday so yesterday right so on and asked ok so i visited twenty delivers a twenty car convoy or a fifth year