WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley This is the Cali crossing show. 50 years ago hundreds of black and white Americans risk being thrown in jail risked their lives because they traveled together on buses and on trains through the Deep South. Known as the Freedom Riders they deliberately violated Jim Crow laws. The violence they encountered challenge their own beliefs and nonviolence despite Supreme Court decisions mandating the desegregation of interstate travel. Black Americans still encountered racism. The Kennedy administration was caught up in the cold war a global preoccupation that dwarfs domestic civil rights. So the freedom writers took it upon themselves to make the change this moment in American history is a subject of a new American experience documentary Freedom Riders. This hour we'll talk with some of the original writers. We'll also meet a new generation of students who will take the ride afresh to compare America then and now. Up next Freedom Riders on the road again. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying family members of

the 11 workers killed in the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion one year ago today are flying over the site where their loved ones died. Eileen Fleming of member station WWL reports it's one of several memorials taking place along the Gulf Coast. We're going to Transocean is conducting the fly over the rig itself remains on the sea floor. The plug that finally stopped oil spewing from BP as well after the blast is marked with 11 stars for the fallen workers. Their bodies were never recovered. Memorial services are planned in Louisiana Mississippi Alabama and Florida. President Obama marked the anniversary from Washington in a statement remembering the workers and promising restoration work will continue. About 2000 workers down from forty eight thousand at the height of the response continue cleaning shorelines. For NPR News I'm Eileen Fleming in New Orleans Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is attending one of the memorials this hour in Grand Isle a prayer service and a candlelight vigil will be held later for everyone affected by the historic spill

which set about 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico causing environmental damage across several states. He says after a year tar balls are still visible. We continue to have active crews out there cleaning up that oil the Coast Guard is supervising those crews. BP is paying for those crews so you've got what it called tar mats and tar balls are showing up. Generally speaking to NBC the latest snapshot of existing home sales shows a 3.7 percent jump last month and NPR's Tamara Keith explains the National Association of Realtors says all cash buyers accounted for 35 percent of those sales. The pace of existing home sales last month was still far short of the level economists say would be healthy. Sales volume was given a big boost by investors and those paying cash for distressed properties. Foreclosed homes and those at risk of foreclosure. A third of the sales were to first time home buyers. That was an unwelcome drop since they're seen as key to a housing recovery. The

national median home price was just under one hundred sixty thousand dollars down nearly 6 percent from a year ago. The Realtors Association says part of the problem is that potential buyers are having a hard time getting mortgages. Tamara Keith NPR News Washington. On Wall Street were seeing gains across the board at last check the Dow is up one hundred sixty six points to twelve thousand four thirty three and the Nasdaq up more than 50 twenty seven ninety six. Former Rutgers University student has been charged with bias intimidation stemming from the suicide of his roommate. Today a grand jury handed up a 15 count indictment against a RWD Ravi. He's accused of using a webcam to spy on his male roommate having an intimate encounter with another man. Tyler Clemente later took his own life. This is NPR News. Italy friends and Britain are sending military advisors to Libya to help rebel forces organize on the ground. And French President Nicolas Sarkozy

reportedly is pledging to intensify airstrikes against Colonel Moammar Gadhafi's forces. Eleanor Beardsley reports Sarkozy met with the head of the rebels transitional council in Paris today. Photographers clicked away as Mustafa Abdel Jalil head of the Libyan transition council shook hands with the French president on the steps of the palace. The two men met for about 45 minutes. Julian was disappointed that his request to have troops deployed on the ground in Libya was denied. French officials say that would violate the U.N. Security Council resolution. France is one of three countries to officially recognize the transition council along with Britain France says it will send military liaison officers to Libya's rebel held city of Benghazi to help the opposition organize. European officials are looking at ways to help the rebels after realizing that the air campaign cannot do it all. For NPR News I'm Eleanor Beardsley in Paris. The Libyan opposition is accusing government troops of shelling rebel held mountain towns in western Libya an area which is largely under Colonel Moammar Gadhafi's control. Fighting in the region has sent thousands of people running into Tunisia. Tunisian officials say

four mortar shells from the battle landed on their territory on Monday. Thousands of students in Syria are again staging protests against President Bashar al-Assad despite government promises to end nearly 50 years of emergency rule. They turned out in large numbers near Omari Mosque the Associated Press reports activists saying there were clashes. The demonstrators say they're working to hold the largest demonstration yet this Friday. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation helping NPR advance journalistic excellence in the digital age. Taking a trip own the Gray has a front seat to things this time. Evelyn Good afternoon I'm Kalee Crossley.

This is the Calla Crossley Show. Fifty years ago hundreds of black and white Americans risk being thrown in jail risked their lives because they travel together on buses and trains through the Deep South. Known as the Freedom Riders they deliberately violated Jim Crow laws to bring about change and equality for all the America they encountered was fraught with racism and violence. But their belief and nonviolent activism prevailed and they helped to shape the America we know today. This is story time is the subject of the forthcoming documentary Freedom Writers by award winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson. It's a production of WGBH is American experience. Joining me today to talk about this part of our civil rights history are three of the original Freedom Writers Genevieve Hughes helden BERNARD LAFAYETTE Jr. and Ernest Rip Patton Jr. Also with us is Peter D Davis. He's a junior at Harvard University and he'll be traveling with other students and the original writers on a commemorative Freedom Writers trip through the

south. Welcome to you all. Thank you. Thank you. I want to start this way because I think aside from the fact that a number of people don't know this history and need for people to go back to the time when you were becoming Freedom Riders and remind them how young you all were at the time and just what it took at that moment for you to step forward and say this is something you wanted to do. So let me start with you Ernest Rip pattern. You were how old and why did you decide you wanted to be a part of this. I was 21 years old at that time but I was also part of the Nashville sit ins. And I think it's important to know the character of the Nashville students and what we went through and the sit ins that brought us so close together. Not only were there students but we had ministers. As a part of that city and ministers and that we came very close to. And I would be remiss if I didn't say something

about people like C.T. Vivian and Kelly Miller Smith and Jim Lawson who taught us about nonviolence taught us what he learned in via doing it the way Gandhi would do it. And in our public library downtown Nashville we have Mark count here and there are a lot of do's and don'ts on there but one we always remember it says we do what Jesus would do. Do what Gandhi would do and do what Martin Luther King would do. And so we became a very close knit in Nashville so it wasn't hard for us to continue to freedom rise because we knew as Bernard said in the film I've got your back no matter what happens to you I'm bringing that second group. And I was in the third group and I was saying no matter what happened to the first and second group this third group was going we also had people who were in the pro let me I don't want you tell me everything just you know I want to get everybody else in the conversation.

Your fire is ready to go. Genevieve outen What made you interested in becoming a part of the Freedom Rides. Number one I had gone to New York having come from Maryland and the contrast was great and I didn't have any bad thinking relatives to contend with and that freed me up to be more the kind of person I wanted to be. And as soon as I got to New York I started changing for the worse I'm sure a lot of people thought or would have thought if they had known but not in my eyes I thought I was improving every day. And I joined New York or Eventually I worked for a corps you know and then I got to go on the Freedom Ride. Right and for is the Congress of Racial Equality. Yes. BERNARD LAFAYETTE you were 21 or 20 I think and what

what drew you to the Freedom Rides. Well that Christmas before the Freedom Rides and I actually you know 50 now and next to me earlier even earlier. John Lewis and I had our own private freedom right down from Nashville to Alabama you know into Florida. And we sat on the far bus because we'd gone through the training already in the fall of the nonviolent training. Yes I balance training and we're preparing for the city and this was even before the sit in started. So John Lewis and I decided we're going to freedom rides together. And that meant dropping out of school. And 19 60 when I was only 20. So I need a proper mission. I sent the papers for my parents to sign when I was the first one in my family to go to college sell their papers and things that you have to sign and so when I ask her to be a mother

you sign the papers and send them back. And my father and they said do you think we didn't read these papers. I said well I was hoping you hadn't. So when I don't sign a death warrant. So because of the Congress of Racial Equality this requirement I was unable to go on the first one. OK but when the rads will stop with violence and they couldn't get a bus driver to drive the bus and they had to hold the Freedom Rides those of us in Nashville so I would take the freedom rides up and therefore we took the lead right when we put in a mission. So let me just set the table for a number of our listeners who don't know this history and Peter I'm going to get back to you in just a second. This is 1961. So for people to understand this is years before the 1963 civil rights act was passed. This is before the 1965 Voting Act was passed.

This is before Freedom Summer. Some people may know that with shorter Chaney and Goodman. So all of this is happening before your the shock troops as it were for the beginning edge of the modern civil rights movement. This was a plan by the Congress of Racial Equality and one Jim Farmer to tast the laws that had already been. It already the Supreme Court had said it's OK for black and white people to travel together on interstate buses. But that was not what was happening in the Deep South. And so you tested that again back to your youth at that time. Twenty one twenty twenty eight. For Genevieve I want to give our listeners a chance to hear a sample of the Freedom Writers reading their letters of application for the Freedom Rides. Here it is. I wish to apply for a stamp and as a participant in cause freedom Ryan 1961 to travel via bus from Washington D.C. to New Orleans from Louisiana.

And a test can challenge segregated facilities and rent. I understand that I should be participating in a nonviolent protest against racial discrimination. That arrest a personal injury to me might result. And that's the part that I think a lot of people hearing you applying to possibly be beaten harmed or even killed is a little startling because nobody wants to put themselves in the line of fire. What what propelled you Genevieve this this was not that you didn't have to do this but I wanted to. I thought I had the dream job of the century working for a corps and this was just a culmination of things I had been doing now for well since I was first sit ins in North Carolina. You know February 1st August 1960. So I had had a fair amount of training and I did not have any problem with

it. I thought it was a good thing. But I deep in my heart refused to focus on the violence. I probably would have been afraid if I had focused on it so I didn't. I chose to believe things would go smoothly. I'm not really that naive to think that they actually would but I would just didn't think that was what I needed to be thinking about. Of course it it wasn't I'm going to get back to that in just a few minutes but I want to get Peter Davis into this conversation. Peter is a Harvard University student and he will be going on a commemorative ride traveling with some of the original Freedom Riders and with some students and young people from across the country who themselves have had to apply for even this commemorative ride so for you Peter what did you know about the freedom rides before and why did you apply to this and what you say in your application to get a chance to be a part of this trip. Well a lot of really unfortunate thing about the knowledge of the civil

rights movement in a lot of people my age is we hear about Martin Luther King we know about the I Have A Dream speech we know about the Montgomery bus boycott but the freedom rides I knew some ideas about and I knew there were college students that had gotten on a bus and challenge Jim Crow laws but a lot of people my age haven't you know heard of the story yet so I only had heard wisps of it and I'm really excited that this program in this 50th anniversary can really remind everyone of this incredible. Event that took place and so I had heard of it and I've been a big fan of American experience and I saw one of my that's a documentary series and a documentary that's putting on the documentary and someone forwarded me the application and I said you know I'm into civic engagement and social activism and it would be such an incredible opportunity to learn from the experts themselves on youth activism so. So that's what you said when you in your application that you said I'm I'm interested but I'm interested in what you

know and what I said is you know every generation we need to really grow the spirit of activism again to make this country better and the courage and I cannot think of a better way for our generation to learn about to develop that spirit of struggle for justice and for betterment of our country than to learn from people who've done it before and done it successfully. And what is it like to sit in a room with people who were your age at the time that they did the original absolutely incredible I mean I they've been asking with this documentary would you get on the bus and you know it's incredible to be with three people that actually DID NOT JUST THINKING ABOUT IT. All right. Well that's Peter Davis He's my guest from Harvard University. We are talking about the Freedom Riders and I am joined by three of the original Freedom Writers Genevieve Houghton Bernard Lafayette and Ernest Rip Patton. I'm Cally Crossley and they are all a subject of a forthcoming documentary by

award winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson. It's a production of WGBH is American experience. We'll be back after this break with more with the original Freedom Riders and one new Freedom Writer Peter Davis. Stay tune to eighty nine point seven. Bush's was right. There and then Jack's. Room where Jack's room and Jack's room distraction. Oh no. Support for WGBH comes from you. And from Boston Private Bank and Trust Company. Committed to helping successful individuals and businesses accumulate. Preserve and grow their wealth. You can learn more at Boston. Private

Bank dot com. And from the Babson College Fastrack MBA program ranked number one in entrepreneurship by U.S. News and World Report. You can earn an MBA in two years while still at your job. Information session on May 7th Babson dot edu slash MBA and from New England nurseries. A family business providing gardening enthusiastic with a wide selection of landscape supplies and services for over 100 years. Route 62 West in Bedford online at New England nurseries dot com. Of the next FRESH AIR were heard talks about his new 3D documentary about a cave in France with thirty thousand a year old cave paintings the cave is so beautiful it's like Crystal Cathedral in the same style like tights instead like mites and facing the paintings insists Shia all join us. This afternoon at to an eighty nine point seven WGBH. Three composers two choreographers one incredible night

the Boston Ballet presents Balanchine robins a selection of classic George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins dance pieces set to the music of Debussy Mozart. And Stravinsky. When you support eighty nine point seven with a gift of just one hundred twenty dollars WGBH will say thanks. With two tickets to the performance on Saturday May 21st Seating is limited because the WGBH dot org slash box office everybody posses warns the world he has seen the film from the wrong end to the deficit by luck coming up with the eighty nine point seven. WGBH. Taking the trip own the Greyhound. Ride in the front seat. Good afternoon I'm Cally Crossley. This is the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just tuning in we're talking about freedom writers. Fifty years ago black and white Americans risked their lives

traveling together on buses and trains through the Deep South to challenge Jim Crow laws. They helped to shape the America we know today. And their story is the subject of a forthcoming PBS documentary Freedom Riders. I'm joined by three of the original Freedom Writers as it happens they all represent different phases of the Freedom Riders campaign. Genevieve Hughes how the first wave BERNARD LAFAYETTE Jr. second wave and Ernest Rip Patton Jr. third wave. Also with us is Peter D Davis if we can imagine a fourth wave. He's a junior at how Harvard University and he'll be traveling with other students and the original writers on a commemorative Freedom Writers trip through the south. Let me start this way because I'm going to take a clip from the documentary so that our listeners can hear what we're talking about when we talk about the violence that. It was really perpetrated on all of you. So Ernest let me start with you. Genevieve said she might not have gone if she'd really understood what violence was all about. You are already a member of the Nashville movement and also the third

wave that you've had a sense of what was going to happen. But before all of that violence was perpetrated on the early writers did. Were you like Genevieve not so concerned about what might happen. The early writers meaning the core group yes. Actually we were I think we were trying to desegregate the theaters at that time. And on that same day happily we integrated the theaters that Sunday. But I wasn't thinking about the freedom rides at the time. One thing about the violence that I have and that that could happen. The only thing I knew was that I had the training and I had a good group of students with me and we were as one. And. If I needed to go on that bus then I was ready to go. And when we say nonviolent training BERNARD LAFAYETTE we're talking about the work of Jim Lawson as Ernest Patton as mentioned and which there were actual scenarios played out before you in which some people would play quote unquote the

racist proprietors of various institutions. And you would play the yourselves and there you would work through all of your emotions in that scene so that you wouldn't strike back. Is that right. Yes that was very important training we had. It's perhaps equivalent to boot camp in our military because it's not only given you the actual skills of being able to use your weapon. It's also gives you the emotional education. Why haven't explosions and that sort of thing around and so you don't jump and panic. American business now and nonviolence we also educate emotions because sometimes people lose it. And that's what they mean is it all when I was in myself I was outside of myself so how to keep yourself inside yourself. Even when the outside is falling

apart. So the nonviolence training had a significant and profound weapon also. How do you do that for people who are listening saying somebody strike me I'm hitting back. Well nonviolence teaches you to ask questions. Why did the person hit you. Because your goal is to change the entire dynamics where you get people to not only stop hittin you but to embrace you would love. I gave you an example very quickly. In this event Jim Lawson our teacher I was in a back line and we were coming back to new theaters and night after we had our demonstrations and there were those who were bringing up the rear so to speak. There was this one people person who thrive as a hoodlum and they would come up behind us you know and they would kick us and they would pull us off the back of a line. This one person came up and spat on Jim Lawson. Jim Lawson's reaction was do you have a handkerchief. And the person

pulled out a handkerchief. Well he had on a black leather jacket and boots and had a chain. And then Jim Lawson wiped the spittle O.K. off him and handed the handkerchief back to the person who had spat on him and said What do you drive a hot rod. What if I talk about motorcycles. This fellow and his name was Danny that had his name on his jacket he walked all the way up to the church talking I was so excited. So we're talking about here. It's not just hidden and not hidden back but find in common ground something that you can associate with the other person and found new ways of relating. Rather than use and balance what you use the power of nonviolence to wind the other person over. So I want to give our listeners a chance to hear a clip from the film which is called Freedom Writers by Stanley Nelson and to get a real sense of what we're talking about when we say violence because perhaps people are listening and they thought you know being spat upon

was the extent of it. But we're really talking about some very serious life threatening situations. So in this clip the Freedom Riders and witnesses describe the bus burning in at Anniston Alabama. Genevieve was on this bus. This was one of the first buses on their way during the Freedom Rides. It was the worst suffering I'd ever heard. Please give me water. Gonna need water. I walked right out into the middle of that crowd. Pick me out one person. I watched her face a Hilter gave her water to drink. Innocent as I thought she was going to be OK I got a pic of somebody else. OK listeners that was the wrong clip. Now we're going to show you. I'm going to we're going to play the right clip for you.

OK so once again this is one of the first buses coming out of that that made its way to Aniston Alabama let me set the scene for you. They the mob has surrounded them in the town. They've managed to get five miles outside of Aniston on flat tires because they cut the tires. The bus driver has walked away. And these are the witnesses left on the bus wondering what is going to happen with the mob outside one of the people inside the bus is my guest today Genevieve Houghton. Here we are. I'm. Like everyone else on the bus. I'm pretty or free trade that's putting it mildly. I watched as a man. Raised his arm above the crowd with a crowbar and he broke out one of the back windows of the bus. You could hear him say steroid and throw it in an Afghan way. That's when the game. Plan went down again we came back up it had some object in it they threw into that. There was a media flash fire on the bus. Pretty

soon the whole back of the bus was blocking the you couldn't even see in front of your face. So I ran up to the front of the bus and I tried to open the door. Only thing I can hear is let's burn them niggers let's burn the bridges that. You will. Explode. In the movie we learn Genevieve that it was only because the bus driver had walked away in the end that the crowd the mob dispersed because of the the fuel tank explosion and you all were able to get off of the bus. Well some of us got out when I got to confess. And that was on the left side of the bus. So everything that happened on the right side of the bus except for the burning object that was put in the bus from the right side. We didn't really know what was happening. We didn't realize that the door were being held shot which is good that we

didn't realize that because that might have freaked everybody out. And our task was a little bit simpler it was just to get from the back to the front. Open a window and get out. We didn't pry to get out through the doors. And that went pretty smoothly actually Nobody prevented us from getting it out. He attacked us saying either you're describing this very rather calmly you're on a bus where they've just put something like a Molotov cocktail and tried to explode the fuel tank and burn you alive. This is it's you know for those of us listening to this it's just mind boggling because all you were doing was riding on a bus. That's true. There were little or little overtones in there that weren't too charming There was of my own who took his pistol out of his pocket and making a point of having me see it. But of course I kept on reading my book moral man and moral society by Reinhold Niebuhr. I

was not about to give him the pleasure of my watching whatever he was going to do with that gun. What gives you the fortitude to do that. Ernest BERNARD LAFAYETTE I mean I'm listening to this. I'd like to think I be strong like all of you were but I mean people are trying to kill you. That's not in line. It's a commitment that you make in Nashville. We were very committed. We did a lot of singing a lot of praying. And as I was listening to before we went to the break the song that you were playing in between. The break there and I remember we were singing buses are coming and the guards were telling us to shut up the noise this is after we are in prison and so we're not. So what are you going to put us in jail. It was just one of those thing. But it's a commitment that you make. Yeah I know. For the Nashville group and I was hoping that Bernard would tell the story about when he was beaten downtown. Another example

was Catherine BURKE This was we were doing the sit ins and as part of the training and I say walked up to her with a cigarette and said I'm going to put this cigarette out in your face. And of course women don't want you know that's that's they don't want a cigarette put out in their face. And so well but you know as if what she did was she looked him straight in the eye and he was determined to put that cigarette out. But she looked him straight in the eye and what she mentally she started it's in her mind singing. I know Let Nobody Turn Me Around. And apparently that got to him and he did not put that cigarette out in her face. Another thing that we went through in training was that young. I remember one night while we were in training and a young man asked reading Lawson the question what if there's a young lady sitting next to me and she's pulled off of a stool and she's beaten What am I supposed to do. He's thinking I'm supposed to help her. Ram Lawson said you just sit at that counter

you continue doing what you do and you don't help her. Because she is there for the same reason that you are is just a difference in the gender. She knows that she's going to be beaten as a possible chance she's going to be pulled off of a counter from a lunch counter so the same applied to the Freedom Ride. The women knew that something could very easily happen to them in the family. If I may John Seigenthaler is trying to get Sue Herman and Sue Wilbur into a cab. These are two white female later on. Yes yes and she tells him mister it's not your fight is not your fight. I'm trained to do this. I'm ready to. In other words she said I'm ready to die for the cause. And so that's that's the kind of training that we had so it's been hard for us to. To continue to freedom rides or to follow and to know what might be facing us right now.

Ernest referenced a situation downtown BERNARD LAFAYETTE I happen to know about the situation and I wondered if you would share that because that was a moment where you said where nonviolence really came to you in a very spiritual way when those 12 cab drivers were trying to beat you to death and you sort of rose above that moment to embrace nonviolence. A lot of people say during the civil rights move they embraced it as a tactical move because they knew if they fought back they'd be killed. So but others went to a different space and that's what Ernest is trying to talk about and what I've heard you speak about and you know in this situation what you're doing is working nonviolently riding on a bus in a nonviolent way but really the goal is to provoke some file and so that you can get some attention of this cause. Right. Well when you know the violence will happen we don't know how severe it would be. None of us wanted violence to occur. We want to change. Violence is one of the things we wanted to change. So the thing that gave us the

determination was that we were able to recognize that we could only save our lives that we were willing to lose our lives. Sometimes you have to lose in order to gain. We made our will because we were not naive about it all after what happened announced in Alabama. We knew that the possibilities okay could be fatal. So we made I will. Now what happens in nonviolence once you overcome the fear of death. It frees you. You see fear is one of the things that change people kidnap people because he kidnaps kidnaps your conscience. OK well what you can become free and we saying we shall overcome. We are talking about not only we shall overcome in

terms of the barriers that we face as a group in terms of social change but we share overcome the fear which is also a barrier which cause people not to take the right action that they know they should take. So in our theory and I don't want to become too intellectual here but the concept is that unusual but genuine behavior in an extreme situation has a potential to arrest the conscience of your assailant. Like Catherine Burt Brooks that he was talking to the rivers talking about the fact that she feels to be seen as just simply an object that you can put out you know a cigarette and somebody's face has struck the conscience of this person. It does not say that the person would not have done that but it says

it does the way you resist because it was the purpose of putting out a cigarette to cause fear in you. But when you refuse to be afraid because you already overcome that fear. Then that puts you in a much more powerful position. That's my guest BERNARD LAFAYETTE one of the original Freedom Writers. I wonder Peter Davis when you hear that do you imagine you were so able to go to that space that I understand I can you imagine that this was history in this country a mere 50 years ago to 50 years nothing people. So this is a mere 50 years ago in this country. It's so hard to imagine that there was a time in this country within the life time of. Strapping Young gents like fans like you who where where the Americans were you know taking warlike violence against peaceful nonviolent fellow citizens of this country and

it's just something I can't even imagine and could never imagine that happening today. There is still a lot of you know racism and hate in America today but I just can't even imagine that mobs of people in the 60s responding to Abbas and it's just some of it's just so it's surreal to hear that story. You know I mean in Boston. Oh yeah. Now yes we know we're not going there today though today we're talking about Freedom Riders the civil rights activists who rode interstate buses and trains into the segregated South. Their story and contribution to American history is the subject of a forthcoming documentary made by filmmaker Stanley Nelson and produced by WGBH is American experience. We'll be back after this break. Stay with us. Oh no. This is your

support for WGBH comes from you. And from the Museum of Science and their newest IMAX film Tornado Alley. You can witness the birth of a tornado and journey through ferocious winds. Now showing in the mew Gar Army theater. Tickets available at M.O.s dot org. And from the New England mobile book fair in Newton for 54 years. New England's independent bookstore. The New England mobile book fair. Find them online at an e-book fair dot com. That's an e-book fair dot com. And from Nova focusing on energy technology and innovations. Are we finally on the brink of a green energy power surge. Or is it all a case of too little too late. Watch Nova tonight at 9:00 on WGBH too. Next time on the world biofuels have been touted as a clean alternative to fossil fuels but many now say making biofuels from crops such as corn is unethical. So how about fuel from straw. It has a very bold line but I do not recommend it to drink it. I'm Lisa Mullins an alternative to alternative

fuel. Next I'm on the world. Coming up at three o'clock here at eighty nine point seven WGBH. Join eighty nine point seven. Brewery and hard. Wood fired bread on Thursday night April 28 at 6 o'clock for a special event called change. And grains. From red to beer. It's your chance to indulge in those delicious pairings of seasonal brews and fresh artisan breads with host Brian O'Donovan tickets are $25 reserve yours at WGBH dot org slash bread and beer. This is WGBH president John Abbott with a sincere thank you for helping us preserve federal funding for public media. Congress heard you. Those funds are vital and so are you. Find more information at support WGBH dot org. Taking in a trip on the Greyhound bus land. I'm rather afraid to

insist. How. Much I'm callin crossly. This is the Calla Crossley Show we're talking about freedom writers this hour. Fifty years ago hundreds of black and white civil rights activists risked being thrown in jail they risked their lives by taking interstate buses and trains into the segregated South. This is story time is a subject of a forthcoming documentary Freedom Writers by award winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson. It's a production of WGBH is American experience. I'm joined by three of the original Freedom Writers Genevieve Hughes Houghton BERNARD LAFAYETTE Jr. and Ernest Rip Patton Jr. Also with us is Peter Davis he is a junior at Harvard University and he'll be traveling with the other students and the original writers on a commemorative Freedom Writers trip through the south. I want to mention this because we haven't talked about it and that is at the time that the Freedom Rides are going on a very young Camelot like. John F. Kennedy is in office and we many Americans tend to think

of the Kennedys as forever linked with civil rights but in fact at this period in time both President John F. Kennedy and his brother Attorney General Bobby Kennedy were anything but supportive of civil rights. They thought it should be a slower course of action as is written about in the Freedom Riders companion book by Ram Raymond Arsenault that things would happen gradually but let's not rush it and they were very afraid that the Freedom Riders were really going to upset the applecart so to speak and push the Deep South into even more violence and upset. And I mention that as a way of setting up a piece that I want our listeners to hear and that is after that first dramatic piece that we just heard about with Genevieve on that bus and those those folks on that bus really almost killed with the with the fuel tank exploding. There came a moment when those writers that were so there were beaten down and the question was should this continue. And folks like Ernest repete and BERNARD LAFAYETTE said it must continue because we cannot let

them win. And so to suggest that violence would overcome. And when this happened John Seigenthaler who was an Assistant Attorney General Robert Kennedy was tasked with trying to get one very determined Diane Nash who was in Nashville and head of the Nashville freedom movement the civil rights movement to stop and not continue the Freedom Rides. And so he's on the phone with her trying his best to get her to understand that their people were almost killed and there for certainly going to be killed if they continue the right so in this clip. Johnson Thaller Sr. the Assistant Attorney General Robert Kennedy is describing his attempt to talk Diane ash out of the Freedom Rides. Her response was they're not going to turn back. They're on the way to Birmingham and they'll be there shortly. You know their spirits are like a tree standing by the water I will not be moved. She would not be moved and and and I felt my voice go up another danceable and

another and soon I was shouting young woman do you understand what you're doing you're going to get somebody you understand you're going to get somebody killed. And. There's a pause and she said sir you should know we all signed our last will and testaments last night before they left. BERNARD LAFAYETTE what happened after that. The second wave you were in that wave continued the ride. There was more violence. Yes. The first wave left Nashville got to Birmingham would have been when I stopped and unbeknownst to us they had been taken out of jail and they were en route back to Nashville. But they had stopped at the state line and the Bull Connor's put them out at

midnight for the state. We didn't know this but you know they had gotten arrested. So we launched a second group. Let me explain that Bull Connor is going to be kind of an iconic figure in civil rights. He was known to be very violent in Alabama and he had been at the scene of many other situations as well. Go ahead. Yes because of Eugene Booker. Yeah well. When we launch the next we don't want to be stopped before we got to Birmingham so some of us went by car and others by train to rendezvous and Birmingham and you know it's just another group had been put out so and they got the word in Nashville no cars were sent to pick them up take them back to Birmingham. So we all regrouped in Birmingham and we stayed up all night in the bus station trying to get a driver to drive us to go to Montgomery Alabama and we should mention that the bus driver said this is not our fight we're

not driving these busses because normal people regular people were on the buses with the Freedom Riders. Originally Yeah and then the bus drivers refused to drive you because they didn't want to be in the middle of all that violence. You can't blame you know like one bus driver you had to board the bus that was destined for Montgomery. But the sign on the front of the bus and the bus driver looked at us and he said. Are you from Colo. Isn't my CORE the Congress of Racial Equality. No one said a thing he said. I know you from the NWA ACP. Even at the WSOP. Yes a thing he won life again and I'm not going to give it to the ACP. And he got off the bus that is changing machine and I refuse to drive. Well the next morning we were told after staying overnight that TURNER General had arranged for a bus to take us all away from

Birmingham to New Orleans. News reporters told us this is who asked that we want we want to ride in a regular way. But I was a big difference between him Trost a travel and inter-state travel. So we went and got tickets. We don't use original tickets we had we got tickets one way tickets from Birmingham to Montgomery so had they taken us any further the mugger had been kidnapped. OK so they had to regroup. Now about the Kennedys I want to say this in all fairness. The South had been loyal to the Kennedys and when they when John Kerry ran for president he was able to win say for example Alabama which is highly unusual because he. But you see they described him not as a

northern liberal because as a senator you can look at his voting record. OK. You know we're not really outstanding in terms of civil rights. OK. And I'm a great fan of Kennedys that kind of thing no question about it. But we have to look at the reality. If you go run for president you've got to be able to win the majority of the vote particularly at that time. That's right and the Democrats were very strong in the south. They call them Dixiecrats. OK. So he did not want to disturb them. OK. And as I was saying earlier he wanted to do it gradually. Right. So he growled every time was sure. Yeah. So his first attempt was to try to get protection for the Freedom Riders when the governor did not give protection. Then he tried to stop the freedom rides and it was really temporary he said until we can work something out and get some protection. They didn't want to impose the

federal government but that's exactly what we wanted to do. The purpose of the Freedom Rides. In addition to this a we gave in there for several days was to get the federal government to take responsibility to give protection. For U.S. citizens. There was a conflict of law but also Administration because the president was the one who would make the decision. How much protection are we going to give to our citizens. And it should be noted that this is one of the original struggles between federal rights and state's rights this was a very much a state's rights issue that we should be able to determine what happens within our boundaries and and not have federal government interference and Kennedy was walking that line. I want to move to Ernest to the point. When you were on the rise and you got arrested because what happened in Mississippi is that they got clever and instead of beating you up in public they decided we're just going to take you all to this penitentiary

known as parchment. And anybody in the south could tell you that parchment was something like hail and more. Well I think. I was arrested with John Lewis and Lucretia Collins Lucretia was the head majorette at the issue. We made it all the way and to the lunch counter we were sitting at the lunch counter and John said I'm going to the white bathroom. And he was arrested inside the bathroom. We feel the object was as we had learned in Nashville was to fill the jails. Now we didn't know that hundreds of others were calm behind us but we knew we wanted to feel that we feel the city jail. They moved us to the county jail because we the city jail was full. I remember when we they took us to the cell block especially where the blacks were and we had to really screw up the place now because mold everywhere is like they had used episode. So we had young people middle aged people older people men in our cell block so we

had Bible studies doing the morning we'd sing all the time we had preachers that it could preach sermons. So we stayed in God's Word and in the evening when that when everything was quiet I think the county jail was like a square with a courtyard in the center. And Bernard and myself and babbles and. Want to got it. Yes. And so we would sing we get up to the window and saying so to the other. Freedom Riders could hear us. Well we sing Oh we shall i will come. Buses a kamina just a nice freedom solid but I would always call it Silas bound in jail down in jail and then the girls would start singing. And when they finish someone else another group was saying this is a way of saying we're okay we're locked up in here but we're OK and we also know what we're doing and why we're here and why we're here. And then the one that we would always finish with was Bubbles would lead it

I know I know we'll meet again and I know when I was oh I guess it's the R&B love style but we kind of changed the words around and so we that gave us confidence to know that even though somebody may have been beaten we don't know. But it gave us confidence to know that things were well. We had hunger strikes that we had to and somebody had that was diabetic so we had to go off one strike. But in even in moving to parchment things were really rough in part yeah I want to emphasize this was not the jail this was the penitentiary is the penitential maximum security. Yeah. Parchment and. They were told Let me get back the governor promised the president that no harm would come to us and I think they ran some. Newspaper or TV things showing Parkman. But they were shown the actual prisoners.

And I believe that this was a deterrent to keep other riders from coming in because I believe in the documentary you see prisoners out digging ditches they got their prison uniforms. We had all raw cotton. We had raw cotton t shirts or cotton boxer shorts and the sheets were made over cotton if you know what it was oddly it was that and we would sing would sing all the time. And the guards just oh how can you sing when you're in prison. We're going to turn the heat up. They turn the air off and turn the heat up and make it is uncomfortable as possible. We keep singing. I just wanted to I wanted to share that experience because you know with time running out here just to emphasize to people what what happened to get this law finally get the interstate bus finally overturned was months later. So we're still talking about when you guys were in parchment when you were you know escaping from a burning bus. Those were months but it took a long

time still with all of that happening and the nation understanding it for that law finally through for that colored and white to come down in the interstate bus terminals and for people to be able to ride and even then it was not necessarily so safe if you tried that because they by custom people were not happy. So you gave your lives for a cause greater than yourselves at a time when if you were doing that and certainly this is a history that we should. Be reminded of because so much so much foundation was laid was it not Peter Davis for folks like yourself so much foundation and really taught us that teaches our generation that it's not the powerful that makes social change. It's not people in elected offices it's normal people who decide to mobilize together for collective action to force those powerful people to make the decisions for social change and I don't know how you all feel when I look around the world and see the young people protesting in various other countries. It kind of reminds me of what what you did Genevieve.

Well I don't think I'm typical of people in other countries at all. I think they're they came from a different place and a very very hard place in some ways it was easier for them to say in a one way have no other alternatives. You know they could just be wiped out by those regimes that exist in other parts of the world but you have someone you know at someone's whim. Yeah. We just had a few people with Williams with bad women. But it does look at me like I'm crazy you know. OK you want seconds to go can you tell me what it's like to think back and know that it's been 50 years. I can only look back and say that if it was not for Nashville that would not have been a lot of changes in the United States not only with the freedom ride but from that hope came a lot of student movements. Just one example real quick one Bernard and babbles got out of jail but Governor said

I'm glad my black students or Negro students did not participate in the Freedom Ride. They stayed with Meg Evers in his home form the Jackson student movement and within two weeks had what forty seven forty eight volunteers to go on the Freedom Ride. So the Nashville group didn't just go on a free run go back home. We were scattered out all throughout the United States. And from that. Other countries have picked up on what we did in Nashville and Nashville I'll just put it like this. Nashville is the blueprint for nonviolence and the way things should be done and I should say that for many of you you continue the work. Well after the Freedom Riders and you are still positioned in many ways across the country and in organizations for social justice and in other ways of leadership and we admire you and we respect you and Peter Davis What an exciting trip you'll have coming up.

We've been hiding our hope and the way you are as we've been marking the 50th anniversary of freedom riders. I've been joined by three of the original civil rights activist Genevieve Hughes Howden BERNARD LAFAYETTE Jr. and Ernest. Rip Patton Jr. Also with me was Peter D Davis he's a junior at Harvard University and he'll be traveling with other students along with some of the original writers on a commemorative Freedom Writers trip to the south dismay. The documentary Freedom Writers will premier on PBS May 16th tonight at 5:30 p.m. the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum will host the Boston premiere of freedom writers following the screening. I'll be moderating a panel with some of the original writers. These three in fact this event is free and open to the public. You can keep on top of the Kelly Crossley Show at WGBH dot arc slash cow across like Follow us on Twitter or become a fan of the callee cross the show on Facebook where production of WGBH radio Boston NPR station for news and culture. Then Jets fans.