American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Jim Zwerg, 2 of 4

a made a phone call out of the game was a reverse saying you've killed her father and hanging up in my ear he's very hard to get a lot of crying that's my room to comfort and they're reading the passengers for criminal out to respond to be shown the talks about got to be in there for years and at one point your my father and my mother at first they could be retooled for sake me and you have to be of good courage and wait on the lord and it concludes with i believe i shall see the goodness of god in the land of the living well what we were involved with was trying to help bring about a beloved community saw fit that song just meant so much to me and i read a couple while many times i might put it

it at the strength that i needed at that point i had never felt so sure of a decision that i was doing god's will but they're going to be in my life my face was never so sure it and understand what can they had a deeper faith stronger commitment to nonviolence the reality that it's the most powerful force in the universe for change positive change i thought i'd be tell you i really can't if we were going to try and not have the violence took place was there was going to be any i knew i had to focus on obviously you're not

going into a sitcom or dead man but reality once i was willing to go anywhere and the next morning we got on a bus and everybody was pretty much on the boston pol works and i were the last to blog understandably i looked in the back and as i said this was a normal interstate bus and so most of the negroes as the term was then were sitting in the back and paul look and that section was full jamie turner wrote we should join i don't want a setback for what you saw the prom with me so that was not the plan with the intent was that i would sit up front insulin

actually gotten outside of national zoo she would not be considered a part of our group which she was her voice back to nashville into something epic when your kids are going to be in the back i was going to be in the from sweden won a broad it didn't work so well we said two seats behind the bluster and paul was a window and i said i know as we took off singing don't really know or injury is going and i said hey cannabis work on a space inside he'll never make him dizzy holy communications we had with anybody else on the bus whether it was uneventful we reached the birmingham city limits and cotton and that yes there should be honest and just about that time the bus starts flowing

and what we didn't realize was they were coming now whether they were tapping dr king's lines you're going forward lines or shovels where we don't know but they knew we were coming and two uniformed officers and bolt cutters got out was i did know was that time bubble asked the bus drivers re routed on ale from that rosario of nashville well he knew to us work and so the turnaround point is so nimble difficult steps toward us look at alternative art and you know albeit back i was not going back about and paul came out with something like you know the federal law shows that i can shoot wherever i please i'm very comfortable hiroshima original ocean move i don't get too horrible you under arrest

you know the federal law since what i basically guaranteed will also add so that there's no interest he needed to do was off the bus and charisma baucus squander would surprise me that was boredom since walker and we had a chance to say in a particular gene welcome joey for bill the squalor shrek i mean for an agreement on all us and we sat there for probably twenty minutes half an hour that washoe year so we wonder what was going on all the alito to stumble person you know her they took young and i went through various i was in solitary in and i was with some phone pole to acquit me and drop it and first you think you just look back to the us that he said well you know you want to celebrate and looking at new models to birmingham ala

and jay leno having having not been arrested in nashville i wasn't quite sure what i was in for but when i was taken to take the viewer announced it very loudly that i was one of them got them that are looking for a writer well it's going to have to say no no no i was surprised or a couple fall as a god my face but it was more like you know what the hell you do a moment and one of one of the principles of nonviolence is that you try and make your adversary of her by being honest with an intimidating so i talked with a parent continuing they'd asked questions i talk

and we saw as soon as i got in there i realized you know there's an incredibly sick people american lawman on the floors of dedication to vernon placed a terribly family was cleaned up well i got the idea you know i asked didn't anybody clean this additional one we don't but a couple days ago we couldn't get so sure enough the trustees brought us and marchman look and we started cleaning ago i and i would take pine tree actually was really claiming real sick to go over and sit with them in iraq i was surprised that that really is as we talked about some of the guys are from a goat uses a pillow that evening they had already arrested than the other

students and of course the way you committed to drill singing so i hear singing coming from the other side of the trail and will moy only eleven loyalty ideologically second are your whistle well in the course of a day as we kept talking a couple things came out i was really shouldn't i and several of them wondered if abolished is no sharing it with a man it came out there you know there were baptist and there were catholics new methodist episcopalian and there was not a single southern baptist and it's interesting so the registry in korea where you'll think the police would let the southern baptists often here that wouldn't be fair i think kind of what i'm

talking about whether rich religion or whether it's the caller lucia starting to sink you know well and we got talking a lot about her financial situation and singing to that riot pokemon re like you know who is bull connor what you saw me it's been i'm dusty on gelatin what your folks rather than they get harmed anyway they had been singing i want to know trying to come up with some republican dollars ok i didn't realize that that that

evening after they had strong bold took them all except poll out to the state line between tennessee and alabama and so i'm trying to come up with some way to let them know i'm ok and they're not even around other people we got talking about a deal and where in some of the fellows that really are also in the pew finds traffic fact that it ended up or morsi's casual and i mean real money or drink or who has you know it's funny i know a song believe it or not the kind of fits our situation where we share when it goes like this ball and silos bound in jail you but nobody you don't want to keep your eyes on the prize hold on and they loved that the city could to

us so i didn't and in the process i had a dozen fellows in various stages of immigration were none the new creation singing eyes on the prize with me letting me know letting them know on the other side that i was ok but again the only one that really new at the north pole but i wanted him to know i was ok and we were there approximately forty eight hours taken to court a fungal to disobey an office for three months twenty twelve final suspended because they had been told that abbas was riveted here we are now bob

i never travels worth and taken to his home to cleanup triclosan stuff hot pants and dinner here and there was a mass meeting in his church and we were asked to speak paula fan after that then we were taken down to the bus station where the rest of the students already were negroes i think you know the story of job and double nationally opium down mueller hand picked up the crew and went back down and by that time also second group had come so instead of ten we were twenty one point he was twenty one twenty two students at that point so young was no longer part human but susan herman and susan wilbur to what students graduates that's

where there's only other plans are out there with drew ropes of marching back and forth in front of her the place but we have been told that we were going to get on to montgomery so we were excited about that possibility and hoping it into manila the tour will go after it's had nobody did but really didn't sleep all out that night enjoy and learn oscar next morning we go and worsen the war and that the moment will set me and they'd been a longer neck celina aarons talk about the invasion you know the uncertainty tension quiet in a discrepancy well when we get to the station like as the other students have already arrived they had

been there either reverend shuttlesworth had been keeping them posted on what was developing in the way of negotiations forrest kennedy getting involved in trying to get us a bus and the montgomery in and getting no simple are getting support coverage we heard about we enjoy it will walk the negotiations were shows is the matter sitting there so let's get back peacefully at one of these the world she worries about legal advice that it is the very wealthy another strange reverb we owned when we arrived we got there name an early evening meat were informed that there were supposedly negotiations going on that it looked like we were going to

get to go into and coloring so we were all full of it could easily home the plan was marching outside but what they can and the average community everybody was really quite a liar and you figure that three other kids from the first group had spent the previous night how can the border her really didn't get any sleep or picked up and driven back to the bus stations where they were pulled the group that came down from national a joyless was probably an unwashed fire they for the most part we just were kind of hopeful that we were going to be able to continue to ride i remember sitting there and i am a noble goal was writing down about my time in jail

and a young white collar came over looking the college aged two and asked for the doctor than a century had a milkshake addiction i remember we sat down you started asking the same questions and scenery plus attendance seriously and wanting answers and in whichever a while and after a while he just about any sport we need to delete offers will trickle through debris so i ended up having to go into the bathroom and keep myself that it was the most exciting thing at me that night but then the next morning when he got word that we were going to be on the bus just democrat but i don't really know who john wizards books were at that time and he's the one that said you know we're going on a gun a bus and john was right on the driver and i was going to be this evening news we got

on the bus that's right riding on those big greyhound carry in law from comb the town keep your eyes on the prize hold and it but it started singing along with me and that's all we sing as we go so i say you use that you're going to you know a use of negotiations is this review heard of an unusual look at a sea of hours we don't know we do know that that was going on it seems we heard there were negotiations well we were really interested in what could we get under the next location of montgomery and we were surprised to learn that there was going to be a police escort you know after the fact he realizes

floyd mann the city providers and by golly we got on that bus and this was not the regular interstate bus there were other passengers on hand so it didn't have to make all the stops and it shows i will hold on the freeway but there was a plane up overhead and the motorcycle policeman at the front of the back now we would see police cars market on warp drive around on sporadically saw some machine on and that's usual and we own self though there were people on that side the freeway shaking fists at us and so forth but we figured do this you know this is a positive and again diane behind the scenes had been working with ralph abernathy hinder montgomery to

try and bring about the same thing that we had planned for birmingham where parishioners would be a civilian trial avoid a box well as we reach the city limits of montgomery all of the places where despair when it just disappeared i mean it had been very very present and there was an issue and the more they are pregnant pause as we drew closer and druze communities closure of the struggle it became weary of the political or traffic wasn't there

who are worse pedestrian traffic this doesn't look good you know the buzz and caitlin then when we reach the city limits the police escort the spear and as we entered birmingham there was snow police escort to be seen as we get closer to the terminal we became aware of the regular traffic and pedestrian traffic was also nonexistent and this was an aging upper hand drying whispered this doesn't look good

when we drove into the bus terminal and jon wiener spokesman you know in the first couple of the bus and there was the mikes set up and if you press folks standing around no real crunch that we could grow as we stepped off the bus quiet i know john has said it was eerie it was so quiet and it was hugely you didn't hear that if you a traffic you can hear when people talking at separate parts and other hand we all got off the bus and linen matter of one minute two minutes china's getting ready to go to the microphone and just as he was about to do this this fella advantage to narrow short for quite

open heart from dr stocky build on what at one of the fellows that was swirling around the parabolic mike's and he grabbed it out of his family threw it to the ground and stomped on and turned and approached one that first grabbed his camera and yanked out and is doing so the cameraman colin and he started in the media all of this with and again it's a matter of seconds and then the next and that seemed to be the few because from around the bus parking area from up the driveways from around core this mass of humanity shereen dig at the kurds of iraq get out get out get out

and you could see a baseball bat soon pieces of play in a hemorrhage and changing people in british one fellow and a pitchfork and you could just see the heater in her ashes color hair new abortion the port area per se so in that moment i bowed my head and i asked god to be with me to give me the strength i would need to remain nonviolent had to forgive them and in that moment i felt a presence

with me a new calling a piece in it is hard to describe came over me and i just i knew that top whether a live twitter and it has to be ok and i was grabbed that only remember saying come undone and there was a ruling that we were standing next to no we take over that can crawl under the ground and not all forster trying to better the group and that's when i got kicked in the spine incredulous roll over on my back conflict in the only face and basically and i wish there was your own show i've heard some nasty stories of

what was done to me oh i was basically encourages little i came to the very briefly hanover matter of a second or two doing i don't watch on a gun in the back of the vehicle that was sitting in the back of the vehicle and he was pressing me to take a picture and i well again and i was in a moving vehicle hen white southern voices were talking to me and i thought i've been taken out to village had it in two and hillary clinton in the emergency room and i saw china and i so when we're the hand now herring are asking about when cohesion a good handgun sicily should put his ear photo id in hand no

and then we took to have to do you remember they were there certainly they uncovered and alive in china i don't remember the interview from a promotion bright lights something that may reflect air i do it all and i'll have no clue it's a home again i think being an ordained minister know i have to say having the holy spirit at those words to say a portrait of a mistake your thing you're a teenager to teach you think you were all know i was twenty one no they're worse

quinn and i knew i was going to beat my head no clue now is really the north londoner but it included matter after that an incredible moment when i came to and i still i figure yet assembled through this gradually gaining traction fb fb