TODAY IN HISTORY: Freedom Riders take to the road (May 4, 1961)

Mural of freedom riders for civil rights

Thirteen civil rights activists, dubbed “Freedom Riders,” began a bus trip through the South.

The first Riders left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.

The Riders rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of two U.S. Supreme Court decision, Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. Watch this news report on Democracy Now!