Freedom Riders (2010)

Documentary, History

Director: Stanley Nelson

Writer(s): Stanley Nelson, Raymond Arsenault (book)

Starring: Raymond Arsenault, Genevieve Houghton, Gordon Carey, Derek Catsam, John Lewis, Diane Nash, Charles Person, Sangernetta Gilbert Bush, John Seigenthaler, Evan Thomas, John Patterson, James Farmer Jr., Clayborne Carson, Julian Bond, James M. Lawson Jr., Jerry Ivor Moore, Hank Thomas, Moses J. Newson, Mae F. Moultrie Howard, Brandt Ayers, Janie Forsyth McKinney, Bull Connor, Howard K. Smith, Gary Thomas Rowe, Diane McWhorter, Ted Gaffney, Harris Wofford, Benjamin Elton Cox, James Peck, John Seigenthaler, Jim Zwerg, Frederick Leonard, C.T. Vivian, Bernard LaFayette Jr., William Harbour, Catherine Burks-Brooks, Delores Boyd, Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Herb Kaplow, Martin Luther King Jr, Ralph Abernathy, Diane McWhorter, Tommy Giles, Joan Mulholland, Ernest Patton Jr., Pauline Knight-Ofosu, Israel Dresner, Glenda Gaither Davis, Sandra Weston

Synopsis: In 1961, during the first year of John F. Kennedy’s presidency, more than four hundred Americans participated in a bold and dangerous experiment designed to awaken the conscience of a complacent nation.

These self-proclaimed “Freedom Riders” challenged the mores of a racially segregated society by performing a disarmingly simple act. Traveling together in small interracial groups, they sat where they pleased on buses and trains and demanded unrestricted access to terminal restaurants and waiting rooms, even in areas of the Deep South where such behavior was forbidden by law and custom.

Release Date: January 24, 2010 (USA) | Length: 117 min | Genre: History | MPAA Rating: Unknown

Note: Presented by the acclaimed PBS series American Experience. The film aired on the PBS series American Experience on May 16, 2011 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Freedom Rides. Based in part on the book: Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice By Raymond Arsenault.

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