A White Woman's Musings on Civil Rights

In my 7th grade Civics class we learned about Civil Rights. In the book there are three pages with information on Rosa Parks, The Montgomery Boycott, Martin Luther King Jr., Brown vs The Board of Education, and the 15th Amendment. Is also had a line mentioning Freedom Riders. Who were they?

Well, I learned about an amazing movement of nonviolence, civil disobedience, pushing against social structures of injustice, and the power of unity.

A group of people had an idea to start in Washington D.C. and ride the bus to New Orleans. Simple. It was a group of black and white people who wanted to desegregate public transportation.

Diane Nash there in the middle. Look her up.

Well, not just people.

People whose ancestors had been forced into slavery, manual labor, sexual violence, forced family separations, physical brutality and all of the issues that forced abuse does to emotions and minds. I have learned all about what emotional abuse does to children. The statistics aren't there on slavery, but I can imagine the psychological changes that take place as you are taught from the day you are born that boundaries do not apply to you does. Slavery is horrifying, and the way humans can justify abuse to other humans is shocking.

The history of violence.

The people whose very rights as humans were denied and then forced into institutionalized poverty, and marginalization- people who were hunted and killed, with no justice from the government that promised to protect them. These are the same people who opted for nonviolence as the method of change. I can't imagine a movement more based on humility, mercy, strength, and hope.

So, I learned about the Freedom Riders. The college students who rode a bus, were beaten while police officers stood by, continued to sit in white waiting rooms in order to protest the Jim Crowe segregation laws of the south. The first group went home because of violence. The presidency at the time flew them home. More students came to fill their places on the buses so that violence would not win out against nonviolence. The riders on the buses took the beatings. Then, they got to Mississippi and they were sent to a state jail. The movement decided to fill up the jail. Freedom riders came on buses from all over the country. They came on trains, and filled up the jail. They taught each other there. They strengthened each other. They knew they were in the right, and they were united in their cause. The jail became a university and a haven to ideas, and the people willing to take action and make sacrifices for them.

A bus surrounded by a mob while the police stood and watched.

The buses did desegregate their waiting rooms.

As I child, I remember hearing about Black History month, and Civil Rights. I didn't understand what it meant to me. I grew up in a place where I felt like I didn't have racial prejudice or privilege. As a middle class white woman, I certainly grew up in a position of privilege, and my prejudices manifest themselves in different ways, but I felt separate from the cause of Civil Rights. I still feel the separation. I have never lived in a predominately black community. Police brutality feels like more of an idea than a reality, but when I consider it historically, I have much stronger opinions.


I can tell you what it means to me now. It means that nonviolence is an option. It means that in the face of opposition and brutality, whatever the form, I can be strong enough to take it. It means that avoiding problems does not solve them. It means that people and systems can change. I know Martin Luther King Jr. was a flawed man.  But, his voice and commitment to nonviolence was accurate. It means the people I see as leaders may be flawed, but that doesn't mean they are wrong about everything. It means the strong opinions I have are met with others who feel the same way. We just haven't ended up in jail together yet. Maybe someday.

Some of the hundreds of freedom riders who went to jail.