It is May 1961. Most college students are finishing final exams, securing summer jobs or preparing for vacations. Thirteen students, however, have different plans. They are getting on a bus, unsure of what lies ahead of them as they attempt to integrate buses traveling through the Deep South.
Fifty years later, I found myself also boarding a bus as a participant in the 2011 Student Freedom Ride, sponsored by the Public Broadcasting Service and The American Experience history series.
As one of 40 college students from across the country selected to retrace the 1961 route, I met and traveled with original Freedom Riders such as John Lewis, Ernest “Rip” Patton, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland and Jim Zwerg. I engaged in discussions about race and civic engagement with my fellow riders and visited historical sites such as the 16th Street Baptist Church and the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
After I found out that I was selected for the 2011 Student Freedom Ride, my life became a whirlwind of preparation, and before I knew it, I was in Washington, D.C., singing freedom songs with my fellow riders. And we never stopped singing. These songs accompanied us as we traveled deeper and deeper into the South, with stops in Richmond, Greensboro, Atlanta, Birmingham, Montgomery and New Orleans. At every stop, we learned something new about the civil rights movement.
There was one instance that, for me, brought home the significance of this trip. On May 13, I stood in the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and watched a 1961 interview featuring a terribly beaten and wounded Jim Zwerg after members of the Ku Klux Klan attacked him and other riders in Montgomery. After viewing this clip, I turned around, walked 2 feet and hugged Zwerg, asking if he remembered this interview. “No,” he responded with tears in his eyes. “I was completely unconscious.”
The 2011 Student Freedom Ride changed the way that I view my life. I learned that when something is wrong, I have both the right and the responsibility to change it, even if it means stepping out of my comfort zone. I learned how to stand by my opinions, how to cry in front of a stranger and how to connect with others who share my passion for social justice regardless of race, religion, background or sexual orientation. Now I am aware that freedom comes at a price, and I am determined to use leadership skills and community service to advance social change and encourage other Americans to do the same.
The story of the 1961 Freedom Riders should not be forgotten. When Freedom Ride organizer Diane Nash talked with me and my fellow student riders in Washington, D.C., she spoke for all involved in the civil rights movement when she said that while they did not know us, they loved us and wanted to create a better world in which we could live. I cannot repay them for their sacrifices, but I can follow their example. Like the original Freedom Riders, I got on the bus because I “woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom.” And after receiving this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, from freedom my mind will never stray.
JoyEllen Freeman of Milton is in the class of 2013 at the University of Georgia.
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