American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with John Lewis, 2 of 3

[Interviewer]: I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you about Bull Connor arresting you. I'm gonna ask you, you know, I was gonna ask you about, you know, putting the cardboard on the window, all those things I, I, I wanna ask you. But for us, it's better if it comes in, you know [Different speaker] Oh, really? [Interviewer] Okay, so, so the question was, I wanted to try get you back, you know, so, so, so, so we understand that you're in Nashville, um, when the, when the buses burned and, and there's a riot in, in Birming- in Birmingham but I, I, and, but I, the real question, I guess, is, is, is how you felt when that happened. [Lewis]: I was very troubled, but I heard that the Greyhound bus in Anniston, Alabama had been burned, with some of my friends and colleagues. I would've been on that bus. I was one of the original Freedom Riders. So I knew the people that were on the Greyhound bus. I knew the people that were on the Trailway bus. It was 13 of us. And I knew more. We, over a period of time, we became

like a family. We were like brothers and sisters, and when something happened to one of us, it happened to each one of us. [Interviewer]: How did that help your determination to continue the rides? I mean, did that, I guess th-, the real question is, is, did play a part in your determination to pick up the rides? [Lewis]: What happened in Birmingham and Anniston was a guiding force more than anything else that we could not let the threat of violence, the beating, the burning, stop a non- violent campaign to desegregate public transportation throughout the South. [Interviewer]: Um, did it have a special meaning again for, for you? Did you feel, kind of, you know especially that, that, you know, as you go into these meetings with, with, with, with the SNCC and the students in Nashville that, that, you know, that look, you-

we've got to do this! [Lewis]: What had happened had a special meaning for me because I was there. I could've been one of the people sitting out on the highway. I knew these people. I knew that they were committed, deeply committed, to the philosophy and the discipline of non- violence. I knew that they were prepared to die for what they believed in, and we had to pick up where they left off, and that's what I tried to convey to the adults and to the other students, uh, in Nashville. [Interviewer]: Great, thank you. I had this horrible feeling that my phone was on. It's not, okay. Everybody's phone off? [Different speaker]: Yes. [Interviewer]: Okay, sorry. Alright, um, One thing that, that I, they think is important, and, and this doesn't have to be a long answer, is that, is that the students in Nashville um, you know, were, were kind of battle-tested. They were hardened.

They, they, and one thing I wanna get out here is they were not scared of jail you know, they had been to jail. [Lewis]: We had jail, we had jail, uh, without bail. That was part of our, and [Interviewer]: Okay, okay, if you could start out so that it says, you know, we had been to jail, I mean, so, I guess, uh, lemme ask it as a question, John. Um, were, were, were you and the students in Nashville, were you scared of jail? Did jail scare you? [Lewis]: As, as participants in Nashville, we were not afraid of jail. Uh, we would've said jail, uh, without bail. Uh, we had a, perhaps, a deeper understanding of the philosophy and the discipline of non-violence more than any other student group in the South because we had a wonderful teacher in a man named Jim Lawson. Uh, we had been taught; we had lived a philosophy and a discipline of non-violence. Uh, we believed in it, and the students in Nashville, we became the

first mass arrests in the sit-in movement, when almost 100 of us had been arrested and jailed in 1960. We had been put out on the street to remove snow, uh, from the sidewalks. [Interviewer]: So, you were not scared of jail? [Lewis]: We were not scared of jail. We would sing a song about Paul and Silas, bound in jail, had no money to go their bail. [Interviewer]: Great, um, one thing that, that someone thinks, told us, I think it was C. T. Vivian said that um, that, that in the meeting that, that, that, uh, where, where SNCC, in, in Nashville, kind of decides that they're going to go on the Freedom Rides, that, that at some point he remembers kind of taking a break, and he remembers kind of going to think about what you were going to do, and he, he, he talks about going outside and, and, and at night and looking at the stars and thinking about, you know

what, what, what you guys were, were in for and, and, and, and what you should do. Do you remember that at all? [Lewis]: Oh, I remember so well when the adults was trying to decide and trying to make a decision, and they would ask me from time to time, even some of the young people, "Well, so what should we do, John?" And I will always come back, "We've got to find a way to dramatize it. Dramatize it! And so the only way that we can dramatize it, we must get on a Greyhound bus and pick up where others left off. We have to get on this bus. We have to travel." [Interviewer]: What do you mean by dramatize it? Why? [Lewis:] Make it, make it real. Use the drama. The sit-in, the stand-in at the theater, the Freedom Ride, it was drama. It was used to help educate, sensitize people, make it real, make it plain. That's what it was all about. [Interviewer]: Mmm-hmm, okay, great, um, one of the things that happened was that, that, that Bull

Connor, um, arrests you all, you know, puts you all, um, so after, you know, he, he, he tapes up the stuff to the window, Bull Connor, now, arr- arr- arrests you. Talk about the fact, that, that, you know, Bull Connor arresting you. [Lewis]: Bull Connor take us to jail on a Wednesday afternoon. We stay in jail all night Wednesday, all day Thursday, Thursday night. We go on a hunger strike. We don't eat anything. We haven't had anything to eat since Tuesday, and in the early Friday morning, he come up to our jail cell, saying he gonna take us back to Nashville. And we get to the Tennessee-Alabama line, and he said I'm gonna let you off here and drop us off. Let's stop for a moment. My eyes are watering. [Interviewer]: Yeah, I was gonna say, okay. [Lewis]: All right. [Interviewer]: Let's cut. ?inaudible? I, I, I wanna go back because I just wanna talk a little bit about Diane Nash, you know, cause I love that, you know, every, if you can tell me, you know, about

Diane Nash, you know, as, you know, as, as, every, every guy has a crush on her as her, her beauty, but also her commitment. Okay, so we wanna get both of those things, alright? Are we ready? [Different speaker]: ?Si? [Interviewer]: Okay, again, talk to me a little bit about Diane who, who Diane Na-, Nash was. Talk about her beauty. Talk about the fact that, that, that, you know, everybody loved her but also about that, that, you know there was this other, I mean, there was so much more to her. [Lewis]: Diane Nash was a student at Fisk University. She was from Chicago. She became one of the most active student attending the non-violent workshop, every Tuesday night at 6:30, and I think a lot of the guys from Fisk or Tennessee State from Meharry and Vanderbilt and American Baptist were drawn to Diane. And some of them came there to study the philosophy and discipline of non-violence. But I think they came there also to be in the presence of Diane Nash. And they loved her

so much, we all did, until she became like the convener, the chair. She was beautiful. Just absolutely gorgeous, and she was, she would, she would knock you out, I'm talking about, she was really one of -- and she didn't take any stuff, and, and she was very serious about it, and I think some of the other young women probably came somewhat uh, "Why are these guys so in love with Diane Nash?" But she held us together as a movement, so when we were sit in or standing at the theater or got ready to go on the Freedom Rides to pick it up, she was our anchor, she was the coordinator, she was the contact person, and she was very effective. [Interviewer]: So it wasn't only that Diane Nash was beautiful? [Lewis]: She was not just beautiful. But she -- smart, good organizer, good thinker, and she was always planning and looking ahead, and she was always asking the right questions. [Interviewer]: Okay, great, thank you. Um,

when Bull Connor took you out there in the middle of the night [Lewis]: Hmm. [Interviewer] so he, he takes you out, he says he's going to Nashville, but you get in this kinda car, these cars with him, and they're, and they're just driving in the middle of the night through, you know, Alabama, what did you think? [Lewis]: I really, I really thought ?when? Bull Connor was -- told us, I really did, he told us that he was gonna take us back to Nashville to our college campuses, and I thought he was gonna take us back and drop us off. I remember Catherine Burks saying to him, "When we get to the Student Union, uh, we would have breakfast, we would, we would have breakfast with you." And we got to the state line, the Tennessee -- the state line of Alabama, he said, "I'm letting you off here. A bus will be coming along. You can get on a bus, you can get on a train." And dropped us off. And there was one young

?white? man, a student at Tennessee State, said, "There must be some colored people here someplace." We didn't know what was gonna happen. I knew it was not a good sign to be left there, at night. It was Klan territory. We started walking. Now we didn't know what had happened to Jim Zwerg and Paul Brooks, the other two young people who had been arrested. We hadn't communicated with them. We didn't have any way of communicating. So we came upon an old house that was falling, knocked on the door, said, "We are the Freedom Riders, please let us in." An elderly black man came to the door, closed the door back. Knocked again, said, "We are the Freedom Riders, please let us in." and this elderly woman, the wife of this man, said, "Honey, let em in. Let em in." They brought us in,

put us in a back room, there were one or two chairs, a single bed, and most of us took a seat on the single bed, others on the chair, others on the floor. There were the seven of us, plus, later, a driver who came to pick us out. But it was eerie and it was somewhat frightening, cause we knew that we were probably endangering the life of these two elderly people. We told this gentleman that we hadn't had anything to eat, that we had been on a hunger strike. We gave him some money. He was so smart and so clever. He jumped in this old truck when daylight came and went around to several different places and brought bread, cold cuts, cheese, bologna, what we call cinnamon rolls ?

or ?cimmabun?, and brought it back into this back room, and that's what we had for a meal. We made a call. We made a call to Diane Nash, told her what had happened. She told us that the other two young people, Paul Brooks and Jim Zwerg, had been released from jail, and one other young student, a young woman by the name of Salynn McCollum, who was a white woman, who was a student at Vanderbilt University, ?at the? Peabody College, that her father flew down from Buffalo, got her out of jail and took her back. See, during those days, the jails were segregated. You get arrested together, black and white, but they put the white prisoners in one cell black and the blacks in another one. So we didn't know what had happened to Salynn McCollum, we didn't know what had happened to, uh, Jim Zwerg, but later we learned that they had been released from jail, and Salynn had gone

back to Nashville. [Interviewer]: Okay, let's, let's cut, um, we're getting a little, um [Lewis]: Long. moisture in, in his eye here. [Interviewer]: Okay, good. [Lewis]: As a participant on the Freedom Ride, we all had to sign a waiver. The waiver read something like I wish to apply for acceptance as a participant in CORE's Freedom Ride, 1961, to travel by bus from Washington, D. C., to New Orleans, Louisiana, and to test and challenge segregation facilities en route. I understand that I shall be participating in a non-violent protest against racial discrimination, that arrests or personal injury to me might result, and that by signing this application, I waiver all rights

to damages against CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality, and I sign it John Robert Lewis. [Interviewer]: Okay, let's cut for a second. I'm just gonna have you do it again. You got makeup? If, don't, don't say that it went something like this because [Lewis]: Just say as a participant. [Interviewer]: Hold on one second. [Different voice]: I'm sorry. [Interviewer]: Okay, go ahead. [Lewis]:As a participant on the Freedom Ride, I had to sign a waiver: I wish to apply for acceptance as a participant in CORE's Freedom Ride in 1961, to travel by bus from Washington, D. C., to New Orleans, Louisiana, and to test and challenge segregated facility en route. [Interviewer]: Let's stop, let's stop. I don't know what just happened there. [Different voice]: Uhhh. [Different voice]: I think that, um [Lewis]: Did he bump against something, that came on its own? [Different voice]: No, it's the, the machine, the DVD player. I know, we didn't press power. [Different voice]: It's a found, it's a found, DVD player. [Different voice]: Right, it won't stop. [DVD player stops whirring] [Different voice]: Here we go. [Different voice]: Okay, we're rolling. [Lewis]: As a participant on the Freedom Ride, we all had to sign a waiver:

I wish to apply for acceptance as a participant in CORE's Freedom Ride 1961, to travel by bus from Washington, D. C., to New Orleans, Louisiana, and to test and challenge segregated facilities en route. I understand that I shall be participating in a non-violent protest against racial discrimination, that arrests or personal injury to me might result, and that by signing this application, I waive all rights to damages against CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality, John Robert Lewis. [Interviewer]: Great, okay, um, now, I'm gonna ask, I wanted to ask about the, um, the bus, in, in, from, um, Birmingham to Montgomery, and, I think, I wa-, I'd like to

do it in two parts, John. I want you to talk -- the first part would be about, um, you know, when, when you kinda -- so you're stuck in Birmingham, so when you kinda get the word that you're, that, that, okay, now we're moving out, we're going to Montgomery, and then up until you get to the Montgomery state line. I don't, I don't want you to get off the bus. You know, I want you to [Lewis]: You want me to get on the bus. [Interviewer]: I want you to get on the bus. I want you to [Lewis] Well, let me ask you, let me ask you this, now there's something [Different voice]: First, I'm gonna cut. [Interviewer]: You know, it's already going back and forth about the bus, not the bus. Okay, so, finally tha-, finally you get word that there's a bus. [Lewis]: We finally get word that there would be a bus leaving Birmingham for Montgomery. We go out to board the bus and this white bus driver make an announcement, and he says, "I have only one life to give. I'm not gonna give it to CORE or the NAACP." And he refused to drive the bus. So we go back into the

station, we wait for them to call another bus to Montgomery. They refuse to drive. So that one time along the way, at some point along the way that night -- we stayed in the station throughout that night, waiting for a bus -- an angry mob marched on the bus station. The police force called out dogs to disperse the mob. Then we understand that Bobby Kennedy had negotiated with the officials of Greyhound to get us out of Birmingham. At one point Rober, Bobby Kennedy was heard to say, "Let me speak to Mr. Greyhound. Don't you have some colored bus drivers there?" Greyhound didn't have any black bus drivers working in Birmingham, Alabama. But Bobby Kennedy was able to get an agreement that early Saturday morning we would board a Greyhound bus, and there will be on that bus two officials of Greyhound

dressed in white shirts, no jacket, sitting on the front seat, and there will be a plane flying over the bus and every fifteen miles there will be a patrol car. I became the spokesperson for that group. Most of the Freedom Riders had been up all night, so most of the people got on the bus and they went to sleep, and as we traveled the highway between Birmingham and Montgomery, you could see a patrol car, and, every so often, you could see the plane. And the moment we arrive at the Greyhound bus station in downtown Montgomery, the patrol car disappeared. There was no sign of police protection. And we started down the steps of the bus. An angry mob came out of nowhere, started beating members of the media. If you had a camera, you had a pencil and a

pad, you were in real trouble. They started taking these large cameras from photographers, from reporters, smashing them, beating them down with their own cameras. Then people with their pencil and pad, destroying their notes. And then they turn on the Freedom Riders and start beating us. I was standing with Jim Zwerg, who was my seatmate. We were the first two off the bus, we were riding on the front seat, and the mob started beating us. And then there was several young men that were caught behind the iron rail near the, uh, post office, and they jumped over the rail and went through the post office.

And most of the young women was able to get in a taxi cab and get [Interviewer]: Let, let, let me ask you to, to, to, just, start, start this, this over, John, cause, you know, we, we talked to, uh, we interviewed, Ber- Bernard Lafayette, and talked about jumping over the rail. We talked to Catherine, who talks about the cab. But, I want you to talk about you, you know what I mean? I think that, that this part is better if people just talk about what happened to them [Lewis]: Alright. [Interviewer]: and we kinda, kinda put it together like this. [Lewis]: Alright. [Interviewer]: You know, people just talking about what happened to them. So, wh-, what I want, what, what I'd love you to talk about here is, is what you remember, you know, what you saw, what you heard, what you felt, what, you know, what happened to you: The bus pulls in. What do you remember? [Lewis]: When the bus pulled in, and we started down the steps. I started on the steps with Jim Zwerg. An angry mob that grew to several hundred just came outta nowhere, women, men, young people

with baseball bats, with chains, with lead pipes, wooden crates, anything that could be used as a weapon, starting beating members of the media. If you had a camera, they would just beat you. Then they turn on us, and I was hit in the head with a wooden crate, left bloody, unconscious on the streets of Montgomery. And I remember someone from the Attorney General office coming up while I was laying down, tried to read an injunction to me, prohibiting interracial groups from traveling through the state of Alabama. The last thing I recall, standing with Jim Zwerg -- we both was bloody, our clothes were soaked in blood. [Interviewer]: So as you're lying there, half unconscious, uh, the

the Attorney General of Alabama comes up and reads you an injunction? Tell me that again. [Lewis]: As I was lying there on, on the ground, the Attorney General come up and read an injunction that some judge in Alabama had issued prohibiting interracial groups from traveling through the state of Alabama by way of public transportation. The next thing I knew, I had been transferred to a local physician office, where my head was patched up and a bandage was put on my head. It looked like the Red Cross symbol. [Interviewer]: It does. It actually does look like the Red Cross symbol, the way they bandaged your head. I'm sorry to smile. [Lewis]: That's okay. [Interviewer]: It's 50 years later! [Both laugh] [Lewis]: Yeah. [Interviewer]: Um, one of the things that, that, that it, it just seems so ironic, you know, that, that you're laying there, right, you've been beat up, there's this mad mob raging through town, and the

Attorney General, now, gives you an injunction for traveling in an interracial group. I just wanna, to make sure that we understand the irony of that. [Lewis]: We were an interracial group. There were young white men and women travelling with us, and they thought for some reason by traveling together, using public transportation, that we were going to inflame the good citizens of Alabama. The governor of Alabama, a man by the name of John Patterson at the time, has said to a representative of President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy that he was not going nursemaid and try to protect us, and it was a Public Safety director for the state of Alabama named Floyd Mann, saying, "Governor, you give me the power, you give me the authority, and I will protect these young people. I will protect them." The day while we were being beaten, Floyd Mann, the Public Safety director, came and stood on the

scene and held his gun in the air and said, "There will be no killing here today, there will be no killing here today," and dispersed the mob. He later was fired. [Interviewer]: Talk about, uh Patter- I just want to talk a little about Patterson because you know, one thing, the one thing about Governor Patterson is that now, Shuttlesworth an-, and Martin Luther King, an-, you know, really said that, that, that in some ways, he, if one person was responsible for what happened in Montgomery, what was happening in Alabama to the Freedom Riders it was John Patterson. Why? [Lewis]: John Patterson and the State of Alabama sanctioned the violence against the Freedom Riders. They knew there were Klan element between Birmingham and Montgomery. They knew there were Klan element

in Anniston that burned the bus, that people who had beaten people on the Trailway bus in Birmingham. They led us into a mob that was a conspiracy on the part of the State of Alabama and Governor Wall- Governor Patterson was a part of it. [Interviewer] Mmm-hmm. Okay, let's cut for a second. Can we -- let's open that thing, of everything. [Lewis and others laugh] [Different speaker] Okay, we are rolling. [Lewis]: I know what you mean, brother. [Different speaker]: That's all you want? [Lewis] That's all I want. That's all I need. [Interviewer] I wanna talk about the church scene, the next day. [Lewis] Yes, that's another dramatic -- that's the, that church is where I met Dr. King the first time. [Interviewer]: Really? [Lewis] I met him there in 1958. [Interviewer mumbles] [Lewis]: But that's another story. You don't need to know all that. It's not good for you. [laughter] [Interviewer]: You're making fun of me, aren't you? [Lewis]: No, I'm not making fun of you. I would, I would never do that. [Interviewer]: Yeah you are, yeah you are, you are, in your own way. [Lewis]: No, I would never do anything like that. [Interviewer] That's okay. I'm proud to be made fun of by you. I will, I will cherish that. [Different speaker]: You ?shouldn't? be. [Lewis]: No, no, no, no, no, no. [Interviewer]: I'll be like, I'll tell people, I'll be at the office tomorrow: John Lewis made fun of me. [Lewis]: No, no, no, no, no.

That's, that's another story, that's years earlier. [Interviewer]: Okay, I wanna talk, I wanna tap into, I wanna jump into the middle of the, of the church scene, I wanna, I wanna talk to you about, um, Dr. King trying t- t- t- to calm the crowd outside. Talk, talk a little bit about that. That, as this raging mob is, is, is, is, is, uh, is outside, talk about the efforts, you know, by King to calm the crowd. [Another speaker]: We got it, we're rolling. [Another speaker]: Yes. [Interviewer]: Okay. [Lewis]: During the mass meeting a day after the Freedom Riders arrived in Montgomery, an angry mob gathered at the First Baptist Church. There were hundreds and thousands of people inside of the church, waiting to greet and salute and support those of us on the Freedom Ride.

And Dr. King felt it was his calling, his obligation as the leader of the movement to do what he could to calm the crowd when an angry white group started toward the church, and when they got near the church, they started burning cars, throwing stink bombs into the church. Martin Luther King, Jr., went down into the basement of the church, made a call to Robert Kennedy, and told him that we have a dangerous situation here, that he had act, he had to do something. And Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General, communicated it to his brother, President Kennedy. And that evening, Dr. King came back up to the pulpit of the church and said he has spoken to the president, rather to the Attorney General, and that the Attorney General said he would be speaking to the President. He told everybody to be orderly, that we could not engage in, in violence.

And I remember Fred Shuttleworth, this unbelievable, brave, courageous minister who was a leader in Birmingham, coming, taking the pulpit and said, the man that is more responsible for what is going on in Alabama, the violence against the Freedom Riders, is Governor John Patterson. And a few minutes later, the General of the Alabama National Guard came in and took over the meeting and said essentially what Dr. King said. It was a very dangerous and intense situation, inside and outside. And ordered everybody to remain in the church. So we stayed in the church, all night, all night, all of us, all of the Freedom Riders within the choir stand. They disguised us as members of the choir because the

representative of the Justice Department didn't want the local authority from Alabama to interview us before the FBI did. I remember sitting there, in the choir stand with a little cap over my head.