At the height of the US civil rights movement, buses full of young people crossed the southeast United States from May to November 1961, challenging the laws of segregation that forced people of different races to sit in separate sections while travelling on public transportation, to use separate entrances to buildings, and that kept educational and professional opportunities limited for African-Americans.

One bus was bombed in Alabama, and riders were severely beaten and arrested in Jackson, Mississippi. At that point, no bus drivers would take them any further, and the riders decided to stop before reaching their final destination of New Orleans.

While the original ride remained incomplete, freedom rides continued until autumn all over the South, demanding civil rights for all Americans. The movement, supported by activists like Martin Luther King, Jr., helped bring about a fundamental change in the United States and inspired others around the world.

Non-violent response

Charles Person and Dotie Smith-Simmons, both in their 70s, said seeing the Freedom Rights buses arrive in New Orleans at the memorial celebration meant a lot. They were among the people challenging segregation laws.

"The Klansman got on the bus, and they beat us, and they physically threw us to the back of the bus," said Person, who was the youngest of the original freedom riders. "One eyewitness report said that they stacked us like pancakes in the back of the bus."

Activists were often attacked by people including the Ku Klux Klan, a racist hate group, and the police, so they had to challenge unjust laws by not answering violence with more violence. Smith-Simmons helped train activists in challenging unjust laws without escalating the conflict.

"If they were sitting in the chair, we would knock their chair over and they would fall to the floor," she said of her training sessions. "We would spit on them, we would slap them, but they could not fight back. They had to learn to take it."

For Smith-Simmons, celebrating the freedom riders' arrival 50 years after the original trip started took her right back to the core of the struggle for equal rights for black people.

The original freedom rides in 1961 were started to protest the segregation that was widely practiced in the Southern United States. A court ruling from 1890 said blacks could be restricted to "separate but equal" accommodations was applied to all parts of society like housing and schooling. Although the US Supreme Court began overturning this decision in the 1950s, there was virulent resistance to integration.

Not everybody made it

The freedom rides were a way to test the strength of the Court's decisions. In 1961, the rides provoked incredible violence. Buses were bombed, activists were beaten, injured and arrested.

Solomon "Skip" Alexander was in his 40s at the time. He said he started his civil rights career by de-segregating the US Air Force. The US military had forced blacks and whites to serve in different units. Alexander became one of the first African-Americans to serve alongside whites in 1946.

"It's so emotional, and it means a lot because some of us didn't make it. Some got outright killed," he said. "Some got beat up badly. I think of all those who didn't make it."

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 38 activists were killed between 1954 and 1968. This figure, however, doesn't include those who were lynched as part of the ordinary reign of terror aimed to keep African-Americans living in fear.

Issues shift

People at the memorial event in New Orleans said they felt that while the civil rights movement may be part of the past, even with a black president in the White House, the work to achieve equal rights for all Americans is far from done.

"Today riding on the bus is not the issue," said Carol Bibel, co-founder and executive director of Ashe Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans. "Today it's education and jails. Today, the places that are barriers to democracy are really what we are not doing in terms of school, in terms of justice. I think that, being forced in a certain kind of way into that place, will remind us of how far we've come and how far we still have to go."

Bibel said the quality of education available for most poor people and many people of color is worsening, as public schools face mounting budget cuts. Another issue is the high imprisonment rate for black men throughout the United States. Louisiana has the highest rate of incarceration in the country, which leads the world in this area.

In line with Bibel's thinking, 40 college students from around the country were selected from 1,000 applicants to complete a memorial freedom ride with a handful from the original riders.

From race to religion

Doaa Dorgam, a psychology student at North Carolina State University, wore a hijab showing her Muslim faith and said the freedom rides' message continues to resonate. While the civil rights movement helped to change attitudes towards and the treatment of African-Americans, in the post 9/11 United States, Muslims experience discrimination and harassment.

"The irony of the situation was that here I am in the airport celebrating the 50 year freedom ride and how they sought to stop discrimination and segregation in public forms of transportation and I have to go through a body scan to be followed up with a pat down and then a lot of evil glares," she said.

"What it taught me is that we still have a lot of work to be done. And so to be able to learn the lessons of these people who changed America is something that I feel is extremely empowering," Dorgam added.

Author: Zoe Sullivan

Editor: Sean Sinico