Rolling On

As white and Negro Freedom Riders continued their rolling assault against segregation last week, they produced some profound results in South and North alike:

P: In Washington, Attorney General Robert Kennedy urged the Interstate Commerce Commission to start enforcing the vaguely worded federal ban on segregation in restaurants, waiting rooms and toilets at interstate bus terminals. The ICC in 1955 outlawed segregated seating in interstate buses. But that rule is rarely obeyed in the South, and the ICC has acted against only one offending bus line, which was fined $100.

P: In Chicago, Greyhound Bus Lines said that it will enforce nonsegregation in its stations throughout the land. Two signs were promptly removed from entrances to two separate waiting rooms in the Greyhound station at Montgomery, Ala. One sign had read, "Colored Intrastate Passengers." and the other, "White Intrastate Passengers." The Trailways bus system said that it had also agreed to a policy of nonsegregation. And whites and Negroes ate peacefully side by side at the Trailways station lunch counter in Montgomery. Just a week before, eleven Freedom Riders had been jailed for trying to do the same thing.

P: In Jackson. Miss., the number of Freedom Riders held on breach of peace charges swelled to 53--most of the 13 whites in the city jail, most of the 40 Negroes in the county jail across the street. As the Freedom Riders spent the time praying, singing and discussing the philosophy of peaceful resistance, Jackson officials strove to present a picture of sweet reasonableness, gladhanded the visiting press at frequent parties. At week's end, the jailed Freedom Riders began a hunger strike.

P: In Montgomery. Ala., U.S. District Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr.. a native Alabaman, cracked down hard on both sides. He issued a temporary order restraining four Freedom Rider organizations and five Negro ministers (including Martin Luther King Jr.) from "sponsoring, financing, assisting or encouraging" any future test rides. At the same time, heeding a Justice Department request, he ordered the Montgomery police to protect Freedom Riders against further beatings, and enjoined some local Ku Klux Klanners from trying to halt or maul the riders. Warned the judge: "If there are any such incidents as this [mob violence] again, I am going to put some Klansmen, some city officials, some city policemen and some Negro preachers in the federal penitentiary." The riders were unmoved. Said Dr. King: "Certainly the Freedom Rides will continue."

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