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14 <br /> • May 8, 1961 - Joseph Perkins is the first Freedom Rider to be arrested after <br /> sitting at a whites only shoe-shine stand in Charlotte, NC. John Lewis is <br /> assaulted in the Greyhound bus terminal of Rock Hill, SC, after attempting to <br /> enter the white waiting room with fellow Freedom Rider Al Bigelow. <br /> • May 12, 1961 — Freedom Riders warned of violence ahead by Martin Luther <br /> King. <br /> • May 14, 1961 - Anniston officials give Klu Klux Klan permission to attack riders <br /> without consequences. The Greyhound bus door was held closed outside <br /> Anniston, Alabama while the Freedom Riders were inside and the mob fire <br /> bombed the bus. The mob then attacked the Riders as they fled the bus. <br /> • When the Trailways bus reached Anniston, eight Klansman boarded the bus, <br /> attacked and beat the Freedom Riders. In Birmingham, Alabama, the riders were <br /> attacked as police and local officials watched as the mob beat the non-violent <br /> Freedom Riders with baseball bats, iron pipes and bicycle chains. <br /> • May 20, 1961 - Police escort abandons Freedom Riders. The Riders attacked <br /> again in Montgomery, Alabama leaving Congressman Lewis unconscious in a <br /> pool of blood outside the Greyhound bus terminal. Compounding all of this was <br /> a lack of medical assistance that Black bus riders could receive for injuries <br /> received. <br /> • May 23, 1961 - The Riders board buses from Montgomery to Jackson, MS under <br /> National Guard escort. They are jailed upon arrival under the formal charges of <br /> incitement to riot, breach of the peace, and failure to obey a police officer. <br /> • June 1961 - Freedom Riders are transferred to Mississippi's notorious Parchman <br /> State Prison Farm. Segregationist authorities attempt to break their spirits by <br /> removing mattresses from the cells. New Freedom Riders continue to arrive in <br /> Jackson, MS and be jailed throughout summer. <br /> Approximately 450 women and men, from May 4 through December 10, 1961, participated in <br /> the Freedom Rides. The Freedom Riders persisted in their fight for justice, and eventually their <br /> activism influenced and changed the landscape of race relations, civil rights, and human rights <br /> in the United States. The success of the Freedom Rides showed that nonviolent direct action <br /> could do more than simply claim the moral high ground; in many situations, it could deliver <br /> better tactical results than either violent confrontation or gradual change through established <br /> legal mechanisms. <br /> Chair Price read the proclamation: <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 <br /> and Trailways buses in Washington, DC, to begin a journey to New Orleans, Louisiana, riding <br />