To honor the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides, Case Western Reserve University’s Social Justice Institute and the Office of Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity, along with Olivet Institutional Baptist Church, Facing History and Ourselves and WVIZ/PBS ideastream, will host The Freedom Riders Sept. 30 at 6 p.m. in Ford Auditorium. The event will include a screening of the Emmy Award-winning PBS documentary Freedom Riders; a conversation with Diane Nash, civil rights activist and coordinator of the Freedom Rides, and the Rev. C.T. Vivian, associate minister of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church; and a Q&A with Rhonda Y. Williams, director of the Social Justice Institute.
Freedom Riders tells the story of six months in 1961 when more than 400 black and white Americans traveled together on buses and trains through the Deep South, deliberately defying Jim Crow laws and enduring beatings and imprisonment.
Space is limited. Register online at www.facinghistory.org/freedomriderscleveland.