Alabama State University News April 15, 2011 ASU's National Center to Host Annual E.D Nixon Symposium The 50th anniversary of the Freedom Riders incident will be remembered at the National Center's annual E.D. Nixon Symposium. The National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture at Alabama State University will host its annual E.D. Nixon Institute for Research and Cultural Enrichment Symposium on Thursday, April 21, at 11 a.m. at its Annex site, 1345 Carter Hill Road. This year's symposium will commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Riders' incident in Montgomery. Mark Potok, director, The Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center and local eyewitness to the Montgomery Freedom Riders' incident, will discuss "Combating Fear, Intimidation and Violence from Hate Groups and Individuals." The Institute is named for Edgar Daniel Nixon, the Montgomery labor and civil rights activist who played a crucial role in organizing and ushering in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Modern Civil Rights Movement. In the tradition of previous Institutes, this year's program will offer scholars and laypersons original information on important but little-researched topics regarding civil rights and African- American culture in Montgomery and Alabama. This event is free and open to the public. The Freedom Riders' Incident in Montgomery The Freedom Riders were civil rights activists that rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decision Boynton v. Virginia (1960). The Freedom Rides, and the violent reactions they provoked, bolstered the credibility of the American Civil Rights Movement and called national attention to the violent disregard for the law that was used to enforce segregation in the southern United States. Riders were arrested for trespassing, unlawful assembly, and violating state and local Jim Crow laws, along with other alleged offenses. On the morning of May 20, the Freedom Riders traveled toward Montgomery at 90 miles an hour, protected by a contingent of the Alabama State Highway Patrol. However, when they reached the Montgomery city limits, the Highway Patrol abandoned them. At the bus station on South Court Street, a white mob awaited and beat the Freedom Riders with baseball bats and iron pipes. The local police allowed the beatings to go on uninterrupted. Ambulances refused to take the wounded to the hospital. Local blacks rescued them, and a number of the Freedom Riders were hospitalized. On the following night, Sunday, May 21, more than 1,500 people packed the Rev. Ralph Abernathy's First Baptist Church to honor the Freedom Riders. Among the speakers were Martin Luther King Jr., the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and James Farmer. Outside, a mob of more than 3,000 whites attacked blacks, with a handful of the United States Marshals Service protecting the church from assault and fire bombs. With city and state police making no effort to restore order, President John F. Kennedy threatened to commit federal troops, but Gov. John Patterson forestalled that by ordering the Alabama National Guard to disperse the mob. For more information, contact Gwendolyn Boyd at 334-229-4876 or 334-229-4824. SANDRA M. PHOENIX Program Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 404.592.4820 Skype:sandra.phoenix1 1438 West Peachtree Street NW Suite 200 Atlanta, GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (Lyrasis) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children.