Original members of the 1961 Freedom Rides — and the children, nephews and grandchildren who carry their names — will meet the buses along the route. Some ride the whole way. Others come to a single city that holds their family’s history. The documentary records every one of those meetings.
Henry Thomas, booked by the Jackson, Mississippi police department, 24 May 1961.
The final surviving member of the original thirteen Freedom Riders who departed from Washington, D.C. on May 4, 1961. Thomas has been arrested twenty-two times for civil disobedience and sentenced to six months’ hard labor in Mississippi.
His daughter, Robbie Thomas Pemberton, will join The Ride. If physically able, Hank Thomas will make an appearance in Atlanta.
John Lewis, booked by the Jackson, Mississippi police department, 24 May 1961.
One of the original thirteen Freedom Riders. The late U.S. Congressman John Lewis is hailed as one of the central leaders and voices of the American Civil Rights Movement.
His nephew, Jerrick Lewis, will join The Ride.
Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, booked by the Jackson, Mississippi police department, 8 June 1961.
Arrested in Jackson, Mississippi in 1961 during the Freedom Rides, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland was sentenced to two months in the state penitentiary. She later became the local secretary of Jackson’s Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
Joan Trumpauer Mulholland and her son, Loki Mulholland, will meet The Ride in Washington, D.C.
Kredelle, Alphonso and Rev. Matthew Petway, booked by the Jackson, Mississippi police department, 24 July 1961.
Part of the “flying” Freedom Riders. On July 24, 1961, Rev. Matthew Petway and his children Kredelle and Alphonso boarded a Delta Airlines flight to Jackson, Mississippi, where they were arrested and jailed in the Hinds County Jail.
Their daughter and sister, Margaret Petway, will join The Ride.
Freedom Riders regroup beside a bus, 1961.
At the age of eighteen, the late Charles Anthony Person was the youngest of the original thirteen Freedom Riders. On Mother’s Day, May 14, 1961, at the Trailways bus station in Birmingham, Person was among the most badly beaten.
His daughter, Keisha Person, will join The Ride.
Joan Trumpauer Mulholland and her son Loki meet The Ride at the start, in Washington, D.C. — the city the original thirteen left on May 4, 1961. Hank Thomas, health permitting, appears in Atlanta. The route passes Birmingham, where Charles Person was beaten, and Jackson, where the Petways, Lewis, Thomas and Mulholland were all booked into the same jail.
Pilgrim riders travel the same route and join the community events at every stop. Sponsors bring a 1961 Freedom Rider, with a companion, onto the bus for all twelve days.
