Students join civil rights veterans on symbolic bus ride

WASHINGTON - Johnny Ray James of Louisiana boarded a yellow school bus Wednesday morning and took a seat behind his heroes - Freedom Riders and other veterans of the civil rights movement who traveled to the South 50 years ago on a mission to battle segregation.

'It took people like that who were not particularly from the Louisianas, the Mississippis and Alabamas to come down,'' said James, 26, a native of Monroe, La., and a recent graduate of Louisiana State University. 'My forefathers of Monroe and of Louisiana were the people who had to actually live down there.''

James was among dozens of students chosen to participate in a symbolic bus ride from the U.S. Department of Education to Richmond, Va., to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The students accompanied civil rights activists, including some Freedom Riders, who had challenged the South's non-enforcement of Supreme Court rulings declaring segregated public buses unconstitutional in the early 1960s. They were beaten and jailed, and their buses were firebombed.

Wednesday's bus ride was one of many events this month commemorating President Lyndon B. Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act.

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In a packed room at the education building named after Johnson, students and civil rights veterans talked about progress on racial equality - including President Barack Obama's historic 2008 election - since the act was signed into law.

Catherine Lhamon, the Education Department's assistant secretary for civil rights, called the commemoration 'a marker of how far we've come - and we have come so far - and that's so exciting. It's a reminder that we still have steps we need to make forward and we need to be making them together.''

No matter what happens, don't ever give up your right to vote and use it whenever the opportunity comes.

The Rev. Reginald Green, Washington

This year marks the 50th anniversary of several civil rights milestones, including the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars racial discrimination in schools, employment and public places.

Freedom Summer also took place 50 years ago, bringing hundreds of college students, mostly from the North, to Mississippi to help register blacks to vote.

It was a turbulent time, particularly in the Deep South. Some activists were beaten, jailed and even killed.

50 years ago, the Freedom Riders were greeted with violence as they journeyed to the Deep South.

Hundreds of Freedom Summer veterans met at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss., last week to remember that effort and call for continued action to protect minorities' right to vote.

'That's the thing we want to get across to young people,'' the Rev. Reginald Green, a former Freedom Rider who was jailed in Mississippi, said at Wednesday's event. 'No matter what happens, don't ever give up your right to vote and use it whenever the opportunity comes.''

Green, pastor emeritus of the Walker Memorial Baptist Church in Washington, urged those participating in the symbolic bus ride never to forget the civil rights activists who didn't leave Mississippi. Local residents played a key role in the civil rights movement.

'We must never forget those persons... that remained there, put their lives at risk, their jobs in jeopardy and their childrens' lives were at risk,'' Green said. 'Those are the folks whose names we may never know.''

Throughout the South, activists such as Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, one of the first white Freedom Riders, participated in sit-ins, registered voters and protested segregation at schools and other public facilities.

'I am glad that we're celebrating, but it's important to remember the cost,'' said Mulholland, a former Tougaloo College student who worked in Mississippi.

Those efforts led to major legislation, including the Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Obama also acknowledged the gains.

'The Civil Rights Act brought us closer to making real the declaration at the heart of our founding - that we are all created equal,'' he said in a statement. 'But that journey continues. A half a century later, we're still working to tear down barriers and put opportunity within reach for every American, no matter who they are, what they look like, or where they come from.''

Hank Thomas, also a Freedom Rider, said he and other veterans fought in Vietnam only to face discrimination at home.

Thomas said if he and others had returned with a Congressional Medal of Honor, they still wouldn't have been able to sit at the front of a bus or eat in some restaurants.

'That was the plight of black soldiers back then,'' he said. 'We loved a country that did not love us.''

Contributing: Nicole Gaudiano, Gannett Washington Bureau

DeVon Pruitt, 21, of Meridian, Miss., applauded the work of the civil rights veterans and 'the seed of faith that was planted by so many men and women.''

'I'm a recipient of that and I'm here to celebrate those sacrifices - and to not only celebrate those sacrifices but be inspired to face future challenges,'' said Pruitt, a senior at Xavier University in New Orleans. 'Civil rights was not just for African Americans, but for all Americans.''

James, the Monroe native, said those sacrifices made it possible for him to graduate in 2012 from Louisiana State University, a predominately white college that began accepting blacks only in the 1950s.

'Fifty years later, there are still schools that are still very much segregated,' said James, who teaches fourth-grade English at a public school in Atlanta. 'Most of America is still very much segregated, whether it be by policy or some institutional factor. ... Things like this help refresh us, help recharge us, to let us know the work isn't done. ... It's still a long journey to freedom.''

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