The Freedom Riders Turn 60 (with Dr. Bernard Lafayette)

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Lemonada Media

Society & Culture, Film Interviews, Tv & Film

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2021

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Freedom Riders, we sit with Civil Rights activist Dr. Bernard Lafayette. In May of 1961, black and white students made history, riding interstate buses into the segregated American south. Lafayette, then age 20, was one of those riders. At 80, he shares his early memories of protest with roommate John Lewis (3:20), the non-violent strategies used to disarm the white mobs of the South (10:50), and traveling from Montgomery, Alabama to Jackson, Mississippi (17:13), only to get arrested several times (21:02). Then, Bernard shares what the Freedom Riders can teach us about organizing in 2021 (25:39) and how he grappled with the deaths of John Lewis and C.T. Vivian (32:09). Plus– a special guest joins us as we close (37:00).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin.
0:07.0	This is talk easy. I'm San Frico, so welcome to the show. Yeah. Today I am joined by Civil Rights Activists Dr. Bernard Lafayette. On May 4th, 1961, 13 black and white students took two public buses from Washington, D.C. with the intention to arrive
0:56.6	in New Orleans two weeks later.
0:59.4	This of course would later be known as the beginning of the Freedom Rider Movement, organized by
1:05.2	Core, the Congress of Racial Equality. With little press and no protection, the movement
1:11.8	protested the segregated bus terminals across the American
1:15.6	South.
1:16.6	Along the way, the Freedom Riders attempted to use whites-only restrooms and lunch counters in states like Alabama and South Carolina.
1:26.7	Despite the nonviolent principles of core, the movement faced mass resistance, white citizens, some of whom belong to the KKK, attempted
1:37.2	to derail the mission of desegregation.
1:40.3	In both Aniston and Birmingham, Alabama, the mob turned violent, fire bombings and brutal beatings,
1:48.0	with law enforcement remaining indifferent at best and outright complicit at worst. There's more to the story I could share, but with the 60th anniversary of the Freedom Writers happening this week, I wanted to go beyond a Wikipedia entry or history lesson and instead sit with
2:07.5	someone who was actually there in protest in the summer of 1961. Dr. Bernard Lafayette is that person. He was 20 then and 80 now.
2:20.0	He's remained in the fight for racial equality in the intervening years, alongside the late
2:25.6	John Lewis and CT Vivian, both of whom passed away last summer.
2:31.2	He's the co-founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a leader of the Nashville Freedom
2:36.5	Riders, and the Selma Movement of 1965.
2:41.0	He was hired by Martin Luther King in 1967 as the program director for the Southern Christian
2:47.4	leadership conference.
2:48.8	In fact, there's a photo of Bernard and Dr King together just hours before his passing, which if you haven't seen, you should.
2:59.6	You can find that photograph in our show notes at talk easy pod.com. It was a tremendous honor to
3:07.4	sit with Dr Lafayette in conversation. I think you'll understand why by the end of this episode.
	...

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