American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Ernest Patton, Jr. (Rip), 2 of 2

well dr lawson part international and he was a person of trained us first of all we had to learn about how law and savior jesus christ learn about gandhi and learned about marketing and blossom put all this together and he trained us to be nonviolent it also trainers to pursue what to expect and how to react to that and the violence how to react to it and how to fall how to cover yourself to protect yourself and there was one most things where you have to protect your own so you're not there to protect the person and probably you are the person behind you or the person sitting to your right or to your left but unlike the group was like the chain we always worried about the person if we were on a walk in at the movies we would always worry about the person and farmers are behind us who were especially worried about the white students because the whites here in nashville or

anywhere else and that's not just in amsterdam why'd they would be a part of a movement and but we have excellent training and then what we did here a national assembly what we call i will call a little balance we were learning package that we learned something that we could use of the mexico and then of course with the freedom that was the war you write your will knowing that you're going into the deep south a place you'd never been reported on what happened there you go into a warning and nationally came from a local movement that moved us into a national movement and everything and brushed off from that president is yours or drama that came in a country with jim wasser year as a bunch of students

came out in what well we went we went in as a bunch of students as she would say and i think from his training from what he had learned because he had spent three three four years in india studying would convict and he had been a longtime study study air out of the bottle and he talked about the king also occasion so taking his background and given it to us customs and we paid attention and we listened and we saw that it just became a part of life and then you took this argument there was a change made a change and for example i got into the movement because national my home and my attitude was why should i let the mighty us clean up my house when i'm right here and i can have to it myself and that's what got me into the movie and of course his training just for a fact

yes i remember one medley of violence in anniston alabama and birmingham i believe that on that smells mother's day on may seventeenth and i think that we were having a walk in downtown at the creators and we were somewhat celebrating because i believe that's when they decided to open the creators and we were interested really interested in the freedom rides from the beginning because john lewis who was a part of the national group was on that first bus won a lot of awards and dc course he had to get all of us and when we heard that we were keeping up with what was going on with screenwriter and we heard about anniston alabama and birmingham and we became especially once they've made it to new orleans and jim palmer said it's

over we're not going to continue and that's when diane nash really stepped up and said no we're going to nashville going to continue his freedom ride we're not go at them the enemy stop us from doing something that we know that we need to do and so we're going to try them after we knew that this was something the national i had to do an advantage ok so all this war has now passed people where you were at the pictures sees your eyes dr harris his house and no and in a way i think not to gain support the war to be a part of the freedom ride and most parents didn't like the decision but they suggested to him that he not going to

free ride that we needed him on the outside more so than being in the present because i believe that we as students believe that we would have more people to join the free rider even without him being in the jackson jail or local parchman penitentiary and it had turned out students start coming the cement that it makes buster third bus into jackson would basically tee issue students so the conversation was thinking we made it out of the jail we appreciate your warrant to go but we think that you should stay out here more valuable to us out of jail then you are in jail course you know dr king really was an awful lot of cases he was what label in jail well in this case he was more valuable to us out of jail because he didn't go he would mean more to those who

say that oh no courses so good at it there was a debate as to whether not dr king should go or stay and that go first they would be to go on the first ride leaving the montgomery on into jackson there were some of the students who say it but the king you should go you're more valuable to us out of the jew that he should go and i think that's because

a lot of the situation then where dr king has been one of the first ones to be arrested but they got to the final analysis and all's said and done he decided not to go and i think there was a very wise choice because he was they would raise funds for the freedom ride outside of the jail you know a few days now listen yeah and you know if you go well first of all my feelings about going to jackson artist art with being here in nashville and work in any office and especially were part of

our students be american montgomery knowing what had happened in anniston alabama and what had happened in birmingham and of course now when it happen in montgomery one of the things that i say it was i am not going to write simply because what happened i was working in the office taking phone calls making phone calls and lighting things up with leo miller and dianne and i said well i'm not going in this rumor because i'm not going into the deep within something came over me that i had no power over and they say you know i'm leaving the office unquote hall of change will likely most of them a little suitcase with good reason it and i'm back at the office and i'm in the car itself to montgomery and james bible matthew walker jr was in the car and you're right

that person an example i'm in montgomery alabama my mother did you know that i leapt national she didn't know until the day i was arrested because she knew that i would always stay at the office sometimes overnight working and a lady called her and said where's your son and she says it weighs on giarrusso street at the office so the laces know you need to turn the tv on i just saw him in jackson mississippi been arrested and that was something that just came over me it was my time to go i had no control and that's what happened in close ups between montgomery and jackson would be you would never make a stop and to adapt to stabilize the alabama state people they took off and mississippi to disarm and jackson has weapon we'll move over there you know i was on a bus with john lewis

and jim palmer and if you see some footage of journalist enough to bus come annex them right behind us is a nose and continue so so yes we're all over it as the bus rolls into jackson win pull into the bay john lewis gets off and then i get off the bus and i walked to the door and of course we are the second bus to arrive into jackson song three four hours later than the first place and sold the police were ready and i got to the front door and never did get inside the building and i was under arrest for bridge of peace and disorderly conduct which of course they eventually dropped the disorderly conduct so that's one of the station but i am

patricia collins only gets in so many places in that straight to jackson city jail yes this is a long as on the roman senate on the road from montgomery to jackson we would see people as we pass the homes we would say especially black families they would be waving and cheering and of course white families with there were differing attitude on a long metal stretcher stretch from montgomery to jacksonville people alongside the road because i knew what was happening and they knew that this was the free riders are almost two buses that came through and that was the news of the day at that time there's a

lot well first of all after ryan and jackson were house in the city jail which of course we use it all the time and it was very plain we had no problem there but as more riders came in they had to move us to a county jail apparently they had to use a county jail in years so once we went up to some stairs and went to the jail cell in the block that we were here and we found that the crying was no longer chrome it was green hills mold and mildew and so requested still loyal and weekly not only the public trains and the baseballs and although the chrome there were also crying still robb it that we had to do that just to make sure that everything was clean and the tables where we enter a picnic tables but there were made of metal going to quit you would just clean everything because we don't want to spend the house an

environment that they put us in so we had cleaned up everything so that we would be comfortable and those who will come behind us with the comparable so that's what happened in the county jail so what you're doing to the goddess they you know you're interviewing control me you have cleaner coal one the claim was that were not gonna live like animals and the singing was that whatever you do to us we're going to sing and of singing bothers you then we're going to bother you singing was a way of releasing tension i for one one

example was away really stupid and so we did a lot of singing and some it might just are a song and really it just join in what a lot of the songs came from old spirituals they just changed the words to that but the one i was going on at that time but basically where we were not going to be subjected to the field and to let them know that we were quote when people and so that's why we try to keep everything clean but within that sale blockbuster watchmen sure that the white students male and female and black males did the same thing they had to do something quickly enough whoa whoa whoa one

would with the dogs i believe that the saints was we were supposed to be they're furry a whole but we were singing and i think the fact that it hit on the guard was no i'll get you locked up in this prison i can do anything to you that i want to and here you are singing why of course that reminds me of a scripture about pollen science and the bible when they were thrown into jail they did miss going to their jail cells and disappear they were saying them because they were saying they were released from detailed jail just bought a writhing around and just fell down and of course with a saying that was a part of what we felt somewhat like paula science because i think one of the songs that we would sing sometimes about paul and silas and about what happened today when they were singing and what can happen to you as say it releases you any attention that you might

have and of course the attention goes to the barge and they get all tested marketer my guards who were taller than six feet maybe six eight who as you might say were corn who had those critiques would guns the doctor being intelligent than he was walking to his jail cell and parchment with no clothes on ms karen is what they gave him that she and his whatever they gave us to for us to have one we were locked up in a jail cell and this news guards walking with a gun to his head that city's energy has nothing that he can do to the plant he turned around look there's a while you want you have this company where you're going to shoot me and i'm not doing anything pianist walk into my second so there was a lot of tension with the dance when we would sing blows

away go released for us about that you're releasing them say they just announced that while they are saying as much as we did so as we said but as with their real different songs were saying to fit the occasion for example one saddam hussein would go like mm hmm jeremy are our main goal is you know jeremy you round and on a people a walk in people are not talking while they're not the change i weigh and so we would say that we wouldn't just say we would sing and in harmony knows the same harmony i'm a onetime song very important to go back to when the

freedom riders from eritrea were arrested in birmingham there was a white student gems were and what they did was they put gems word and the drop it with the other whites thinking that the legal services that the liberals and here's a white freedom rider and they were thinking that these freedom of these drugs would do something to james were aware james were doing he started teaching these drugs songs freedom song an ad before you know they were singing freedom songs and they became friends with chimps were knowing that he was one of them well quite freedom riders that happened in alabama and running with that first group that went and was arrested in birmingham so song was the song that we do a very important not only to us but they are from just from bottles yes

there is that was the second hour with print mattress that was a second incident with the matters to remember the first time they took a mattress and freddie gave up his mattress apparently still a little bit too hard and be the site of the second time not to give up the mattress and i remember that the guard sent one of the trustees down and out so they were telling you we take a mattress and pee wee bit tempted to take matters and religious guild on to have the time for it was broken into law it's a good omen they're six inches wide and a couple inches thick so it was really as a to wrap your arms around them and pee wee ooh i was told by the guards to get the matches in a way he

couldn't here to be pretty i guess in the race or around children will get the mattress and the beautiful part about it was what one really looked up and pee wee has crime because he knows that he has to do what the garces do otherwise he's going get the brunt of the beating and racist i will tell you like mom used to tape it hurts and this her new worst unheard personally worsen or hurt you or hurt you worse than her to one of the seine that's what really so that's basically the brunt of that measure say first at all so so nervous you need is a nurse we were some energy they did quite a bit to us and parchment

like taking things away and i'm opening once mentioned the fact that the idea was to turn the water off or two at night when he would get called turn air conditioning on doing a daily return air conditioning off a room one time was the ways to try to get back at us was too i mean they put something in the food and david dye reaction and it turned all the water often turned healer and so or at least a day or two when you know running water but you have to run and rightly so i think that happened to us one time and they try different things they can hit us of course they had the opportunity to not sure they want to begin until they have other means to try to make it as uncomfortable for us as i possibly could well the first round we have to be our last so they've had to come to the sun's sale

you know i think you probably know a bruise on somewhere so that immediately i would think so maybe they have orders not to not touch is now one time crook i think the yeah the media the exposure may have something to do with it but i do remember all of it i think the media have something to do with whether or not the guards would hit us or do something to us that would put a marvelous i do remember that when we were first moved from jackson jr to the penitentiary that some of the white students were on a hunger strike and they were very weak and the

guards used catnip rat in at that time town prague to like the pool of guns that they have now that will shock you but a cow problem was the long cylinder that it may be paid be still there isn't it with two males a part of an immigrant a new hit you with that and to get you to move and so a lot of the students especially white males world hunger strikes and reread week going from the transportation that they use to bring us from jackson to part one there's panels trucks and buses that the huge orange from one destination to the other end and walked into the main what you might call the administration failed and some of the freedom riders were not able to walk in was hit something like that because once you say so yeah

ash it's her knew more than it's hurt me you are as freddy was being beaten by a guard the trustee pee wee frilly looked up at the relationship this her new more than it's hurting me immense talent and i think that they probably retrieve the mattress that's right