Fwd:
Gail Acree
From: Emmanuel Mennonite Church <gnvm...@bellsouth.net>
Date: Thu, Apr 21, 2016 at 12:04 PM
Subject:
To: Eve MacMaster <eve...@aol.com>
Cc: Gwendolyn Delores Simmons <zoh...@ufl.edu>
Freedom Riders, a 2010 documentary film
that chronicles the story behind the civil rights activists called Freedom
Riders who challenged racial segregation in interstate transportation.
Veteran Civil Rights activist Zoharah Simmons, now teaching in the
UF Department of Religion, will introduce the film and lead a discussion
after the screening.
Freedom Riders is the powerful harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever.
From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives -
and many endured savage beatings and imprisonment -
for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South.
Deliberately violating Jim Crow laws, the Freedom Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along the way,
sorely testing their belief in nonviolent activism.
Freedom Riders features testimony from a fascinating cast of central characters:
the Riders themselves, state and federal government officials, and journalists who witnessed the Rides firsthand.
The two-hour documentary is based on Raymond Arsenault's book Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice.
Organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE),
the self-proclaimed "Freedom Riders" came from all strata of American society - black and white,
young and old, male and female, Northern and Southern.
They embarked on the Rides knowing the danger but firmly committed to the ideals of non-violent protest,
aware that their actions could provoke a savage response
but willing to put their lives on the line for the cause of justice.