The Freedom Riders (FR) was a group of diverse civil rights activists, many of whom were young college students organized and trained by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). These brave heroes paused their regular lives to risk it all in the service of democracy and social justice for all. 

FR challenged segregation on America’s interstate bus system and by doing so, called attention to violations of the 1946 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Morgan v. Virginia, and the 1960 decision in Boynton v. Virginia, which stated that segregation on buses and of Interstate transportation facilities was unconstitutional. 

These intrepid social justice warriors braced to endure the violence they knew they would encounter on these bus rides; still, they peacefully rode through some of the most racially charged Jim Crow areas to exercise their constitutional right to travel unfettered. 

The FR rode to ensure that Black people could use the bathrooms, eat at lunch counters, and sit in waiting rooms like white travelers. Stanley Nelson, filmmaker extraordinaire, tells the riveting story of the Freedom Riders and unearths an American history truth that everyone should know.