Freedom Rides Anniversary, Day 3: Riders Share Memories Of Jackson In 1961
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The New York City high school students and some original Freedom Riders recreating the Freedom Rides of a half-century ago finally made it to Jackson, Mississippi on Sunday and traded stories to mark the occasion. NY1's Budd Mishkin filed the following report. The final leg of the trip to Jackson, Mississippi started on hallowed ground for the American civil rights movement -- the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. This church was firebombed on September 15, 1963, and four little girls were killed.
"They're like ancestors, in that we should worship this soil, this land," said Stan Kinard of the Boys and Girls High School.
"[It's like] me and my three friends, just walking to school and getting shot by a drive-by. It shouldn't have happened," said Deanna brown of Innovation High School.
By the time the students reached Jackson on Sunday afternoon, they had visited the Lincoln Memorial, the site of the lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro, N.C., and Birmingham.
At their last stop in Jackson, the youth sat in a circle with some of the original Freedom Riders, and the generations shared stories and wisdom.
"There was a bathroom at the ice house that I could not use, because it was for whites only," said Luvaghn Brown, an original Freedom Rider who was born and raised in Mississippi but now lives in New Yorker.
"Now that I truly think about it, I don't think I would have been able to have done it," said Ezekiel Clarke of Innovation High School.
"They knew that they would get in trouble, they knew that that might be on the line, that they might get thrown in jail. But they still went to the ends, just to fight for our rights. To end the Jim Crow laws -- that's just so motivational, so powerful," said Shane King of the Hunter College School of Social Work.
When the Freedom Riders came to Jackson in 1961, they were thrown in jail. Now, 50 years later, these fighters for civil rights and the students who learned about them were given a warm welcome.
"It's like you're changing in a room. You can just feel yourself changing," said Lizzie Umry of the Hunter College School of Social Work. "And I guess I leak when I feel that. It's very powerful."