Crow Police

Freedom Riders from Michigan shifted history When hundreds of ordinary Americans rode into the Deep South to challenge segregated bus stations in 1961, they knowingly provoked violent racists. The first bus was set ablaze. The second was boarded by the Ku Klux Klan, who beat a retired professor from Wayne State University so badly he was confined to a wheelchair the rest of his life. Advertisement But the riders kept coming, bus after bus, month after month, despite arrests and more beatings. Seven months later, the federal government finally enforced a court ruling against such segregation, the plight of Southern blacks was lamented around the country, and the civil rights movement had gone national. With the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Riders on Wednesday, Michigan residents who rode the buses reminisced how they had stood up for justice at a time few others, including the most powerful figures in the country, were willing to do so. “There was no protection by police,” said the Rev. Richard Gleason, 74, a retired Baptist minister from Franklin who was arrested after riding to Jackson, Miss. “I don’t know how to explain it. I felt like I was outside America.” During seven tumultuous months, 436 people rode 60 buses through the South. They were black and white men and women from all over the country. They ranged from 13 to 61. The eight riders from Michigan were mostly college students, a retired elementary school teacher from Detroit, and Tom Hayden, who would become …
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