Freedom Rides remembered

"It was a reasonable way to fight what I wanted to fight all along, but didn't know how," said Brown, now 67.

Brown and Zuchman, 70, reminisced on Saturday at a discussion and film screening about the Freedom Rides at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. The event was part of programming associated with an exhibit of 82 mixed-media portraits of Freedom Riders by New York artist Charlotta Janssen.

Four of the Riders recounted their protest experiences before an audience of 85.

In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) challenged the segregation of transportation facilities in the South. The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled the segregation illegal, but southern states continued the practice.

Thirteen protesters - black and white members of CORE and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) - boarded two buses in Washington, D.C., and traveled south.

One bus was firebombed. Riders were beaten with bats and denied treatment at hospitals. The violence ended the ride and President Kennedy sent federal officials to fly the demonstrators to New Orleans, their final destination.

News of the Riders' efforts inspired others and more Freedom Riders took up the cause. One of them was then college-student Terry Perlman Hickerson, of New York City.

"I'd seen the students on television and it just seemed like the natural thing to do. It was the sixties," said Hickerson, 70, now retired from a career working with at-risk youth and recently-released prisoners. "I went down to CORE's offices and said I wanted to be part of the Freedom Rides. They put me on a plane and I was in jail the next day."

Hickerson recruited fellow student Stuart Wechsler, who became a field officer for CORE. Between 1962 and 1968, he was arrested 30 times.

"It was the most vital and important time in my life," said Wechsler, 70, who now works in affordable housing finance with the state of Maryland.

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Freedom Rides remembered