freedom ride

A Greyhound bus used during the Freedom Rides of 1961 in the United States (sense 1) which was attacked by white protesters in Alabama.^{[n 1]}

A bus used by the Student Action for Aborigines group for the freedom ride (sense 2) in Australia in February 1965

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɹiːdəm ˌɹaɪd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfɹidəm ˌɹaɪd/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: free‧dom ride

freedom ride (plural freedom rides)

1. (US, politics, historical) In the United States in the 1960s (chiefly 1961), any one of a number of trips taken by bus or other forms of transport through parts of the southern U.S., made by groups of civil rights activists demonstrating their opposition to racial prejudice and segregation.
   • 1961, Diane Nash, “Inside the Sit-ins and Freedom Rides: Testimony of a Southern Student”, in Mathew H. Ahmann, editor, The New Negro, New York, N.Y.: Biblo and Tannen, published 1969, →OCLC, page 58:

     It is a slight miracle, I think, that in the almost two years since February of 1960 there has not been a fatality. But we have come amazingly close to it several times. Let me mention the case of William Barbee who was on the Freedom Ride when it arrived at Montgomery and met with mob violence. […]

   • 1961 (year of quotation), Rachel Tisdale, quoting James Zwerg, “The Nation Takes Notice”, in The Freedom Riders (We Shall Overcome), New York, N.Y.: Rosen Publishing Group, published 2014, →ISBN, page 20:

     Segregation must be stopped. It must be broken down. Those of us on the Freedom Ride will continue. No matter what happens we are dedicated to this. We will take the beatings. We are willing to accept death. We are going to keep coming until we can ride anywhere in the South.

   • 1961 May 23, “‘Freedom ride’ must continue—Rev. King”, in Sarasota Journal, volume 10, number 27, Sarasota, Fla.: Lindsay Newspapers, →OCLC, page 2, column 7:

     A Negro leader said today the "freedom riders" whose arrival here touched off race riots last Saturday will continue their test of Southern bus station segregation barriers. [...] [T]he Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. [...] told a news conference the group met for four hours last night and decided that "the freedom ride must continue, we will not specify the exact time, but it will continue."

   • 1972, James Forman, “Lucretia Collins: ‘The Spirit of Nashville’”, in The Making of Black Revolutionaries, illustrated edition, Seattle, Wash., London: University of Washington Press, published 2000, →ISBN, book 1 (A Constant Struggle), page 146:

     The Freedom Rides had reached their peak in June but were not over, and the ferment stirred up by them had by no means subsided. [...] It was the Nashville Student Movement that had continued the Freedom Rides when CORE [Congress of Racial Equality], the original sponsor, had declared them too dangerous and had withdrawn. These students had a right to feel proud and sure of themselves.

   • 1982, Peter N. Carroll, “‘This Terrible Division between Us’: The Politics of Race”, in It Seemed Like Nothing Happened: America in the 1970s, New Brunswick, N.J., London: Rutgers University Press, published 2000, →ISBN, part 1 (The Loss of Connection), pages 38–39:

     Challenging legal obstacles to equality, the civil rights movement inspired mass protests—sit-ins, freedom rides, marches to Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma—that eliminated obvious forms of racial discrimination as it won support from sympathetic whites.

   • 1996, Jonah Raskin, “White Mischief, Black Power”, in For the Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Calif., London: University of California Press, published 1998, →ISBN, page 55:

     Abbie [Hoffman] took his freedom ride at the tail end of the freedom movement. He had missed the chance to be among the Freedom Riders of 1961 or the Freedom School teachers of 1964, and he was determined not to let the South slip through his fingers again. The summer of 1965 would be the last time that significant numbers of Northern whites would go to Mississippi for civil rights, and Abbie would be among them.

   • 2014, Ron Young, “Meeting the Vietnamese ‘Enemy:’ Resisting the Draft; Mass Marches in D.C.”, in Crossing Boundaries in the Americas, Vietnam, and the Middle East: A Memoir, Eugene, Or.: Resource Publications, Wipf and Stock Publishers, →ISBN, page 66:

     CORE [Congress of Racial Equality] organized some of the earliest sit-ins for civil rights in Chicago in 1943, and in 1947 sponsored the first interracial freedom ride, called the "Journey of Reconciliation."

2. (Australia, politics, historical, by extension) A similar excursion undertaken by protesters in Australia in 1965 in opposition to unfair discrimination against Indigenous Australians.
   • 1990, Gillian Mears, “Fineflour”, in Fineflour, St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press, published 1997, →ISBN, page 25:

     The year of the first Aboriginal freedom ride is the year the principal of Fineflour Central boards up a group of kids in the toilet block roof.

   • 1997, Peter Edwards, “Australia on the Eve of the Vietnam War”, in A Nation at War: Australian Politics, Society and Diplomacy during the Vietnam War 1965–1975 (The Official History of Australia’s Involvement in Southeast Asian Conflicts 1948–1975; 6), St. Leonards, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, →ISBN, page 18:

     Led by young activists, black and white, who were conducting ‘freedom rides’ modelled on those of the civil rights movement in the United States, a change in attitudes was in progress which would lead in 1967 to the removal, by a large majority in a referendum, of the provision in the Constitution that prevented the Parliament from making 'special laws' in the interests of Aboriginals.

   • 1997, “Contributors”, in Wayne Hudson, Geoffrey Bolton, editors, Creating Australia: Changing Australian History, St. Leonards, N.S.W.: Allen & Unwin, →ISBN, page vii:

     Ann Curthoys is Professor of History at the Australian National University, Canberra. She has written widely on questions of gender, race and ethnicity in Australian history, and is currently working on a history of the Freedom Ride of 1965.

   • 2005, John Chesterman, “Defending Australia’s Reputation: Ending Commonwealth Discrimination”, in Civil Rights: How Indigenous Australians Won Formal Equality, St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press, →ISBN, page 76:

     Then, in February 1965, Charles Perkins led the famous and extremely effective freedom rides that made him probably Australia's best known civil rights activist. [...] The freedom rides were an extremely dangerous and confronting form of public protest. At one stage the bus was run off the road in Walgett after being pursued by a truck and ten cars, and the bus driver later withdrew from the tour because of safety concerns.

• Freedom Ride

• freedom rider

• freedom march

• desegregation
• Jim Crow
• racial integration
• sit-in

• Freedom Riders on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Freedom Ride (Australia) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “freedom ride, n.” under “freedom, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2008.
• “freedom ride, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “freedom ride”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.