James Farmer, national director of the Congress of Racial Equality, sent a letter to John F. Kennedy on 26 April 1961 announcing the intention of fifteen CORE members to travel through out the South "testing every form of segregation met by the bus passenger."

Ten members of SNCC continued the Freedom Rides, leaving Nashville for Birmingham on May 17, 1961.

George Houser, staff member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and founding member of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), talks about his involvement in the 1947 Journey for Reconciliation and how it served as a model for the later Freedom Ride movement.

John Seigenthaler, aide to Robert F. Kennedy during the 1960 Presidential campaign and Administrative Assistant to the Attorney General, Department of Justice (1961), joined the Freedom Riders in Brimingham; and was attacked and hospitalized along with fellows SNCC riders in Montgomery, Alabama. Fifty years later, Seigenthaler recalls his experience and passes down the legacy of the Freedom Rides to his young grandchild. "Race still matters," he concludes. Click here to watch the PBS clip

Read a biographical essay on Martin Luther King, Jr., prepared by King Institute director Clayborne Carson and the Institute staff, extensively cross-referenced with links to the King Online Encyclopedia.