WALGREEN'S, July 11, 1961, Jackson, MS - RIDE 37
Luvaghn Brown and Jimmie Travis.
When Emmitt Till was killed I started to realize what could happen to you, even if you're just walking down the street. And nothing gets done about it. You're suddenly dead.
I vividly remember that. I was ten.
It was exciting when the Riders came into Jackson, though still with an undercurrent of fear...It impressed me that people had come into the sate of Mississippi to help. I wasn't sold on the nonviolence part, but it did finally resonate as a strategy. - Luvaghn Brown (Breach of Peace, Etheridge, 2018)
WALGREEN'S, July 11, 1961, Jackson, MS - RIDE 38
Eddie Austin, William Baker, Charles, and Carl Hamilton.
GREYHOUND, July 15, 1961, New Orleans, LA, to Jackson, MS - RIDE 39
Carroll Barber, Charles Booth, Ray Cooper, Marilyn Eisenberg, Robert Owens, Jean Pestana, David Richards, Rose Rosenberg, Leon Russ, Jr., Leo Washington, Reverend Douglas Williams, and Jack Wolfson.
Not much is known about some of the Freedom Riders, which is a shame. About some, , like the gentlemen of RIDE 38, we seem to know...well... nothing. Even more of a shame.
The little bit that I could pick up about David Richards of RIDE 39 tells me that he was a carpenter, who though born in New York City (1939), attended Pierce College for a time in Woodland Hills, California. Wouldn't it be nice to learn something more about who he was, about what propelled him from NYC to California, and what he built with his hands? Also on the same ride was an attorney by the name of Jean Pestana. One of the older Freedom Riders, she was born in 1917 and for a time served as part of the Black Panthers' legal defense team. A broad array of people filed into those waiting rooms, rode those buses, and filled those jails as activists. Pestana died in 1997. Richards, in the year 2000.
GREYHOUND, July 16, 1961, Nashville, TN, to Jackson, MS - RIDE 40
James Dennis, Mary Freelon, Philip Havey, Rudolph Mitaritonna, Shirley Smith, Bill Svanoe, James Warren, and Lewis Zuchman.
Bill Svanoe is one of the rare Freedom Riders who had a gun put to his head during his ride. I suspect he's lived a thousand lives since then. If I'm not mistaken, you'll find Svanoe in the popular IMDB database. You'll be surprised to discover what movie and TV show he's associated with.
Lewis Zuchman volunteered because Jackie Robinson was his idol. He saw Robinson on Open End with David Susskind after the Anniston bus bombing. Robinson was disagreeing with NAACP leader Roy Wilkins who felt the rides were too dangerous to continue. Robinson, along with guest and Freedom Rider Hank Thomas, felt that activists had to press on with them. The morning after seeing this show, Zuchman signed up at the Manhattan office for CORE, the Congress of Racial Equality. If you borrow or pick up a copy of Breach of Peace by Eric Etheridge, where I garnered this information, you'll find that Zuchman has spent the rest of his life serving the disenfranchised and the underserved. He remains a Freedom Rider at heart.
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