Bibliography: #X6BR7UU5

key	X6BR7UU5
title	An Early Freedom Ride : Louis Gregory and Willard McKay Integrate Interstate Buses in 1931
author	Ruhe-Schoen, Janet
authority control	Janet Ruhe-Schoen
item type	Manuscript
publication year	2021
date	2021
abstract note	A much earlier Freedom Ride that occurred before any segregation laws had been changed at all. It was a 1931 journey by Louis Gregory, who was black, and Willard McKay, who was white. Writing-up the adventure, Willard said, “I shall always think of it as The Trip. Louis thinks this is the first time a colored man and a white man have traveled together on terms of equality through the Southern states, riding together in a public conveyance.” Miraculously, they didn’t attract the violence that dogged the later Freedom Riders. However, the riders of 1961 wanted to attract violence, to awaken people to the ugly reality of racism. But Willard and Louis wanted to awaken people to another American tradition: racial amity. Louis felt, for example, that white civil rights activists, such as abolitionists; teachers he’d had in his youth, white people devoted to educating the children of newly freed slaves in southern schools; white leaders and supporters of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), and other allies of African-Americans, exemplified this other tradition. Louis and Willard also exemplified it. They did it in a low-key and peaceable way, yet they had to be fearless, for violence was rife along their path.
number pages	11
language	English
manual tags	RACE; SEGREGATION; GREGORY, LOUIS G.; TRANSPORTATION; SOUTHERN STATES; BUSES; FREEDOM RIDERS; INTEGRATION; MCKAY, WILLARD

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