Pauline Knight was a 21-year-old college junior when the chance to help change history beckoned.
“I never understood what ‘called’ meant, but I felt I had to do something,” Knight said in a recent interview from her home in Georgia. “I didn’t ask to go. I simply said ‘I am a Freedom Rider today.’ It was bigger than me.”
Knight was reflecting on the historic Freedom Rides of 1961, a series of ‘test’ rides she and hundreds of college students took on Greyhound and Trailways buses across the South. They were trying to force an end to racial segregation in interstate transportation on buses and trains and in their passenger stations.
For her part, Knight rode the Greyhound from Nashville to Montgomery, Ala., and Montgomery to Jackson, Miss., where, upon her arrival, she was arrested and jailed with other students, some who came before her and some who came afterward.
During her 42 days in jail, Knight received notice from her school – Tennessee A&I State College – that she and 13 other Tennessee State ‘Freedom Riders’ were being expelled for “misconduct.”
They sued the school and won re-admittance. Separately, the government eventually issued an order barring the segregation the students protested. The students had won a victory for justice in their country but lost their school’s confidence and support in the process.
