Freedom Riders to Share Accounts at Event Co-Sponsored by UA Groups

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Three Freedom Riders will share their personal accounts of challenging racial segregation at 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 7, at the First African Baptist Church, 621 Stillman Blvd. and T.Y. Rogers Avenue.

The University of Alabama Crossroads Community Center, Black Student Union, University Programs, Afro American Gospel Choir and the First African Baptist Church are co-sponsoring this event, part of UA’s African American History Month.

Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 to challenge the nonenforcement of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that segregated buses were unconstitutional.

Dion Diamond, Reginald M. Green and Joan C. Browning will share their experiences from when they journeyed across the South in mixed racial groups to protest segregation in interstate transportation.

“We are so excited to hear, in their own words, stories about those days of profound courage,” said Lane McLelland, director of Crossroads Community Center, an initiative of the Division of Community Affairs. “This will be an exceptional opportunity for our students, and all of us who attend, to reflect on the past and gain inspiration for the work still to be done.”

The Black Student Union and University Programs are making transportation from the UA campus to the church available for students.