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3 <br /> ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS <br /> A PROCLAMATION <br /> COMMEMORATING THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FREEDOM RIDES <br /> WHEREAS, on May 4, 1961, thirteen Black and white civil rights advocates boarded Greyhound and <br /> Trailways buses in Washington, DC, to begin a journey to New Orleans, Louisiana, riding side by side, <br /> on interstate highways through the Jim Crow South—through Virginia,North Carolina, South Carolina <br /> Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana; and <br /> WHEREAS, the Freedom Rides involved approximately 450 women and men, from May 4 through <br /> December 10, 1961,who sought to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court <br /> decisions in Morgan v. Virginia E1946] and Boynton v. Virginia E1960] which ruled that <br /> segregation in interstate transportation facilities, including bus terminals, was <br /> unconstitutional; and <br /> WHEREAS, the Southern states had ignored the rulings and the federal government had done nothing <br /> to enforce the rulings; and <br /> WHEREAS, the Congress of Racial Equality [CORE] and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating <br /> Committee [SNCC] sponsored the Freedom Rides and worked in collaboration with the Nashville <br /> Student Movement and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; and <br /> WHEREAS, the Freedom Riders were inspired by the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation led by Bayard <br /> Rustin and George Houser and co-sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the then-fledgling <br /> CORE, and like the Freedom Rides of 1961, the Journey of Reconciliation was intended to test an earlier <br /> Supreme Court ruling that banned racial discrimination in interstate travel; and <br /> WHEREAS, the Freedom Riders encountered mob violence, fire bombings, and police brutality, and <br /> arrest and incarceration for trespassing, unlawful assembly, violating state and local Jim Crow laws and <br /> other alleged offenses; and <br /> WHEREAS, President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy called for a "cooling <br /> off period" and condemned the Freedom Rides as unpatriotic because they embarrassed the nation on <br /> the world stage at the height of the Cold War,to which James Farmer responded, "We have been cooling <br /> off for 350 years, and if we cooled off any more, we'd be in a deep freeze"; and <br /> WHEREAS, the Freedom Riders persisted in their fight for justice, and eventually their activism, <br /> influenced and changed the landscape of race relations, civil rights and human rights in the United <br /> States; <br /> NOW THEREFORE, the Orange County Board of County Commissioners, on behalf of the people of <br /> Orange County, hereby proclaims May 2021 as Freedom Riders Month in Orange County in <br /> Commemoration of this 60th Anniversary of the Freedom Rides and in tribute to the Freedom <br /> Riders, the women and men who fought for justice in the United States of America. <br /> This the 41h Day of May, 2021. <br /> Renee Price,Chair <br /> Orange County Board of Commissioners <br />