The civil rights era Freedom Riders, who risked their lives and limbs by riding various forms of public transportation in the South to challenge local laws that sanctioned segregation during the turbulent ’60s, have finally received an apology — albeit decades overdue — from the Montgomery, Ala., police chief, according to NBC News.
Police chief Kevin Murphy’s (pictured right) apology was made at the historic First Baptist Church on Saturday not only to the famed Freedom Riders but also, personally, to U.S. Representative of Georgia, John Lewis (pictured left), who was a member of the historical civil rights crusaders. Lewis was in town as part for the 13th Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage to Alabama.
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“The act of registering to vote… gives one a sense of being. The black man who goes to register is saying to the white man, ‘No.'”
–Stokely Carmichael aka Kwame Ture, former leader of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and honorary prime minister of the Black Panther Party