Freedom Rides
Lewis’ first involvement in the formal Civil Rights Movement came in 1961 when he joined the Freedom Rides. The year before, the Supreme Court banned segregation in all interstate travel facilities in the Boynton v. Virginia case. Wanting to test the implementation of the law in the South, an organization called the Congress of Racial Equality sent out an ad in a newsletter calling for volunteers to ride buses through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. New Orleans would be the final destination. Lewis applied, unworried about the warnings the ad contained about violence and arrests. Yes, he had experienced both in Nashville, but places like Alabama and Mississippi were different beasts. Nevertheless, his application was accepted, and he became a Freedom Rider. The Freedom Rides started out fine. Riders passed through Virginia and North Carolina without any trouble. When they arrived in Rock Hill South Carolina, they encountered resistance for the first time. Lewis and Al Bigelow, a white rider, attempted to enter the white waiting room at the bus terminal. A white man said, “other side, nigger” (142) to Lewis, and when Lewis replied that he could go in because of the Boynton ruling, a group of white men started punching and kicking him. Bigelow tried to intervene, but he was also beaten. This attack was the first-time blood was drawn on the Freedom Rides. Little did riders know; this attack was nothing compared to what was coming. In Anniston, Alabama, a Greyhound bus carrying nine Freedom Riders was bombed. When the bus stopped, a mob of two hundred angry whites surrounded the bus and began smashing its windows and trying to open the door so they could beat riders. Someone in the crowd threw a firebomb into the bus. Riders were desperate to get off the bus, but the mob blocked the door. It was only when a passenger revealed himself to be an undercover Alabama state investigator keeping an eye on the Freedom Riders and brandished his gun that they were able to get off. However, the second they exited the bus, the mob beat them viciously with punches and kicks, clubs, rocks and bricks, and other things. It was only when Alabama state troopers arrived conveniently late that the mob dispersed. In Birmingham, riders received the same welcome. Another mob “grabbed the passengers into alleys and corridors, pounding them with pipes, with key rings, and with fists. One passenger was knocked down by twelve of the hoodlums, and his face was beaten and kicked until it was a bloody pulp” (146). This passenger, Jim Peck, needed fifty-three stiches to close the gashes in his head. Another rider, sixty-year-old Walter Bergman, sustained permanent brain damage and a stroke that paralyzed him for the rest of his life. Once again, police were conveniently absent. The stakes were now higher than anything participants had seen before. However, Lewis was not in Anniston or Birmingham. He was a finalist for a foreign service program in Africa with the Quaker American Friends Service Committee. He had left the Freedom Rides to interview in Philadelphia. After what happened in Alabama, Jim Farmer, the head of the Freedom Rides, ended the campaign. Furious, Lewis wanted to keep riding. Even though he heard what had happened, he was undeterred and willing to risk his life for the cause. The Nashville Student Movement stepped in, deciding to use its members to continue the rides.
On May 17th, Lewis and nine others, two whites among them, boarded a Greyhound bus for Birmingham. This time, they were intercepted by Birmingham police and Bull Connor, the city’s police commissioner, had them dropped off at the Tennessee state border in the middle of the night. Committed to their goal, riders made their way back to Birmingham. At the Greyhound station, all the buses leaving the city were canceled. President Kennedy’s administration got involved, and a bus was found for Lewis and his companions. Receiving a police escort, Freedom Riders departed for Montgomery. Unfortunately, their escort left once they reached Montgomery city limits, and they were ambushed once they reached the Greyhound terminal. As Lewis describes,
“White people. Men, women and children. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. Out of alleys, out of side streets, around the corners of office buildings, they emerged from everywhere, from all directions, all at once, as if they’d been let out of a gate. … They carried every makeshift weapon imaginable. Baseball bats, wooden boards, bricks, chains, tire irons, pipes, even garden tools … One group had women in front, their faces twisted in anger, screaming, “Git them niggers, GIT them niggers!” … The NBC cameraman, a guy named Moe Levy, was kicked in the stomach … his camera-a big heavy piece of equipment … fell to the ground and someone picked it up and began beating him with it. A Life photographer had his camera yanked from neck and it, too, became a weapon, swung at his face. … One reporter had blood just gushing from his head. Now the mob was moving toward us, and Jim Zwerg (white Freedom Rider) became their target. They shouted “Nigger lover!” as several men clutching axe handles grabbed Jim and pulled him into the mob. All I could see were his legs as his body disappeared into this mass of people. … And now they turned to us, this sea of people, more than three hundred of them, shouting and screaming, men swinging fists and weapons, women swinging heavy purses, little children clawing with their fingernails at the faces of anyone they could reach. It was madness. It was unbelievable. … Everywhere this crowd was screaming and reaching out and hitting and spitting. … I could see Jim Zwerg now, being horribly beaten. Someone picked up his suitcase, which he had dropped, and swung it full force against his head. Another man then lifted Jim’s head and held it between his knees while others, including women and children, hit and scratched at Jim’s face. His eyes were shut. He was unconscious. So was William Barbee, … who was now lying on the pavement, a crowd of men stomping on his head and shoulders. And now they were all around me. … I felt a thud against my head. I could feel my knees collapse and then nothing. … I was unconscious on that asphalt. I learned later that someone had swung a wooden Coca-Cola crate against my skull. … [When I awoke] My head was spinning, both with thoughts about the carnage that had occurred and with pain, I was bleeding pretty badly from the back of my head. I couldn’t believe how much blood there was” (158-60).
As the reader can guess, police did not arrive until after mobsters had their fun. This experience demonstrates Lewis’ devotion to the empowerment of African Americans. Not many people would have been able to go through what he did and keep fighting. In fact, after the mob attack, when Freedom Riders were recuperating in Montgomery’s First Baptist Church, a white mob sieged the church. It was only with President Kennedy’s help in the form of federal marshals and the Alabama National Guard that they were saved. After winning some legal battles with the help of the NAACP over an injunction against them, Freedom Riders moved on to Mississippi. Upon arriving in Jackson, they were arrested and moved to the notorious Parchman penitentiary. After spending three weeks there and dealing with all sorts of abuse, Lewis and his companions were released. Other Freedom Riders continued the journey to New Orleans, but Lewis did not. He decided to continue his fight by becoming more involved in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC.