The film, “Freedom Riders,” recounts the 1961 crusade by daring young activists intent on ending segregated travel on interstate buses in the Deep South. The American Experience film, set to air May 16 on PBS, has been generating buzz on the film festival circuit ever since its showing at Sundance in January.
Most of the riders were college students coached in the art of nonviolent protest by veteran activists, including the Rev. James M. Lawson Jr. The students, both Black and White, knew they were risking their lives by traveling on Greyhound and Trailways buses into the rigidly and violently segregated South.
