American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Rev. Mae Frances Moultrie Howard, 1 of 2

as big it's b i wish to apply for acceptance as the participant in corinth freedom riders nineteen sixty one to travel by bus from washington dc to new orleans louisiana and texas and challenge segregated facilities in really i understand that i shall be because it's made in a non violent protest against racial discrimination that of wrath

a personal injury to name like michel and that eye and python and be out the application i still waive all rights to damage again core the congress of racial equality if directors if all friends and others the sponsoring organization and chef and all other in any way connected with the freedom ride who knew they get into more for you can be you know i was arrested with all these bad things that happen to you all those currents of them in return i wish to apply for a second

term i wish to apply for acceptance at the protest at the anacortes freedom riders nineteen sixty one to travel by bus from washington dc to new orleans louisiana after test and scallions segregated facilities in route i understand that i shall be picked if the baby and non violent protests against racial discrimination that arrests are personally and yet tinny michael is up and that by signing this application i waive all rights to damages against school that you're finding this is there's one million years in this is so

i was told eight seconds after the images below the morning i was to know this is your application i wish to apply to you i wish to apply with that i wish to apply for acceptance at the protests have been in korea freedom ride nineteen sixty one to travel by bus from washington dc to do are in louisiana and protests and salads segregated facilities in route i understand that i should be but dissipating and a non violent protest against racial discrimination that a vest ah personally handed to me might raise hell and back by simon this application i waive all rights act to damages against core this the congress of racial equality

so what do you do well i was always interested in doing anything i could to help our country or the community had neighbors and just the outreach person and i'm not a person who all of our afraid i never was and the child afraid to get in bob in anything and so this was the opportunity when i had the clout to the grouping to martha collison explain to the students about the fun non violent hour bus ride this movement that was going to be a fast are so that was my opportunity to get involved because bb i joined in freedom riders nineteen sixty one it was a mother's day are made of fourteen are because i was interested in doing what i could to get

back it says i was not afraid are and people were concerned about me going on there but i was not afraid and there were people that were actually praying for me and popped the church the community are friends they were all will end for me to go fifth i was not afraid morning kim i'm going to be less than october and we could we try to can get the audience's reaction here and there are you said in one of el coyote howl how how wonderfully writer how i think of the right to help a country we gave back a sixteen walk how they fit right into the country well i think that freedom riders helped the country because the law had path where we were a bird

to ride out the buses or gold and fit at lunch counters that the law in alabama fit that we could not sit at lunch counters but when we were about mother's day nineteen fifty one at and thought of south carolina we didn't have any problems are getting on the bus no problems at the bus station is willing to literally we were in their environment i don't remember thinking or there was on their mother's day getting on the price was just a joke that at first getting on that was going from atlanta in town well i felt very grateful and they're proud that our mothers they send a

packet with a beautiful clear day and calm i had my mind oh and our days travel to pay for columbia and to atlanta and through alabama you know when you think about what we do yeah well just ride and have fled the place where i am about on the earth it was so beautiful and this was a very very calm day and we didn't feel that anything would happen and nights ah away with the prize and flopped aron as we wrote to columbia law and to atlanta ah it was it was just it was exciting and it will flow quiet we couldn't imagine what might be happening lynette hello again is really i think coming out of atlanta not going to so you write

that in atlanta the hated fee on what we think well after we left atlanta an hour we could hear the radio playing very clearly i was sitting about midway the birth on the left side and are we as the driver but the sound up with that he had done fey and that there's a crowd with foreman got an nih near anniston alabama a few miles away ah and they would be attacking the bus and they explained are the different kinds of estimate fighting tools they had com and i'm i began to sort of turn around and because the bath depicted explain the danger that what we would be coming through on this interstate highways coming into anniston alabama louis ck

it is our every left that lead atlanta georgia that day calm we were still talking and having a little bit of an offline on the birth and talking about the beautiful day and i are talking about on monday's we hope that the mothers with adequate they are and as we drove a few miles outside of atlanta a week i began to listen to the radio and the news was on speaking about the odd mob forming outside of anniston i think that within about five or six mouth and the attackers were forming like a parade i'm real parade and they had all kinds of instruments tools with the fighter to be the buffer to kill whatever and they with him that they found head farm

to live on yet for that's right on edge of all kinds of tools and they said they were all ages are men young men middle aged older man waiting for the bus well we began to change from be unhappy and so paul ii and they taped conversation say it's about how beautiful the theory was now and we began to think because we can hear so clearly that has trouble and my i'm not felt personally i started to pray that god would protect us and keep us from answer because that we could we knew that these people had all these instruments and they could then as the tires of the bus tour cause any kind of problem for trouble so we begin

to i began to feel different than i did and beginning why did you feel was really really scary it was it was really surprising to know about to hear about the parade of men and how many it was a day with it was maybe two hundred hundred and fifty i can be attackers and that kind of fight in instruments and tools a hat i began to feel a bit frightened and my mind changed and i began to think about what would happen to us as we arrive near the damage that could be done or if we would make it through anniston alabama great

her work with the focus of talk about what you remember seeing here in feelings as you get into harrison well when the parliament and asked them before the birth of apple when the buffalo down there at the parade men and boys began to come close to the earth as god the bus was born in very slowly and we could feed that they were not play and because they began to hit on the fat of the birth of the buffalo down an army they began to flash the type of one up one and it hasn't fleshed and the men began to come closer and surround the buff completely and now and then we didn't know what would happen at this time because that they will come in so close of a bus does it

at to go through the us imposed its list of time i noticed that i thought wow well actually we could hear the voices of the people talking and out someone yelled out that this kind of flash and bus was slowing down of the bus was almost succumbed to halt that's how we knew some of the things that was happening outside well it was really an site thrive

moms i would think there was more going over two hundred fifty people and i would have been a feeling that it we didn't see any policemen at that time any kind of protection at all no fire department no family and no policemen and it was a feeling that it was all the men of the town and the fee at amherst and that was involved in this op ed participating in with our parade that they would have it against the freedom riders and the bus oh it would get fat mom and i would like to call of the parade because of the games do they were lined up on the flag but as the bus park on the men become they came to say come and they came close to the bus and started to surround and the earth are going through well we could hear

our end we could tell that they were piped through all kinds of instruments that were hit in a birth because that one point that they broke a window and a buzzword that he had the crash of the window ah ended many voices one man said get that we wanted to get the nigger lover of the day when nigger lovers on the birth and now they were just playing up the makers need to get off this earth left when president fair and unfair and apple and left you know be negative on this but the nigger lovers well that was before the bomb came anna that was before this big outcry came in the window right behind where i with at our time and i heard someone say at this point get on the floor and when i heard that found active your voices but all the voices were not clear voice is because it was a

lot like that meant half mad men work yeah lay neighbors negotiator and so finally right in the back of where i was sitting just midway the birth bought this is where the first outbreak came through the window and after that it was thought it was a fan the euclid here and things so i can throw it and an afghan way every death where the death and i that can pass that contains to the birth and with that smell a film and someone yelled from the dollar get down on the floor and that's what i did i cut down on the flow and have a beer at all of the other activities was going home well i was down on the flaw an hour i could hear windows cracked in and you could hear off whatever they were hit into buses weird and the wind is cracking well after that i could not flee i didn't fill with abandon in the door of the earth but it did hear our voices

outside or inside playin no don't let the people get off and there was the voice then i'll get down stay down stay down and when you begin to feel great and i was on the floor at the time really pray in an f in that to give or take the people and faith are fluff from death and a madman with all of the people mother's day with bill maher man at that with that beautiful day at fat and i called it bloody sunday because when they started beating on the people you could see the bloody faces and decay can of the people and the hitting and it was a very bad thing as collateral used a long pause it on your young stay down stay down the smoke is is about well i was the last person i believe that on the bus because i did i did i was i

was still on the floor at this point and i could hear talkin but that i remember learned from the red cross that when i was a smoker a small dam is the state near the floor and i was still pray and until i heard someone said now has the turnpike get off and i was down on my knees and that path to the door and i believe that's why i didn't get hurt be well when when when that when i get out of the bus i don't know where the fire ran out of the bus out on the fire fell out of the door because the health bill lawler and when i knew anything i was the fading on the gray hair and people were around me and act that fleet the question of the other people i was still on the ground and i was not hurt nobody likes me or anything but there was quite a bit of beating and pushing and name calling nigger lover and me this

right well have a fitting in the front of the bus and this mob of people with mobs of killers that were from iran called the native name i could flee been from sitting there while out with coffin and frantic a couple of our one man i don't remember his name but big the campaign kicked him until i just thought he would direct their and there were other people been grabbed and pulled around and so if it was a freeing of inhuman you wouldn't think that any human being could be treated and festive manner fl as i thought there that day and the way that that that really don't understand is that he dares was geared to get off the bus right because the war between the long haul but you're also seriously on the us president obama on those oil revenues that that's kind of what