The Freedom Riders  In this lesson, students will use a primary source—an NBC news report from 1961—to investigate the Freedom Rides. The lesson will also explore segregation in the South and the tenets of nonviolent protest. 

Congressman John Lewis Reenacts Historic 1961 Freedom Rides  Georgia Congressman John Lewis, one of the original Freedom Riders, discusses what inspired him and his friends to challenge segregation by boarding busses across the South in 1961. (NBC Today, May 12, 2001)

Selma: The Bridge to the Ballot is the story of a courageous group of Alabama students and teachers who, along with other activists, fought a nonviolent battle to win voting rights for African Americans in the South. Standing in their way: a century of Jim Crow, a resistant and segregationist state, and a federal government slow to fully embrace equality. By organizing and marching bravely in the face of intimidation, violence, arrest and even murder, these change-makers achieved one of the most significant victories of the civil rights era