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15 <br /> side by side, on interstate highways through the Jim Crow South — through Virginia, North <br /> Carolina, South Carolina Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana; and <br /> WHEREAS, the Freedom Rides involved approximately 450 women and men, from May 4 <br /> through December 10, 1961, who sought to challenge the non-enforcement of the United <br /> States Supreme Court decisions in Morgan v. Virginia [1946] and Boynton v. Virginia [1960] <br /> which ruled that 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 <br /> nothing 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 <br /> Nashville Student Movement and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored <br /> People; and <br /> WHEREAS, the Freedom Riders were inspired by the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation led by <br /> Bayard Rustin and George Houser and co-sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation and <br /> the then-fledgling CORE, and like the Freedom Rides of 1961, the Journey of Reconciliation <br /> was intended to test an earlier Supreme Court ruling that banned racial discrimination in <br /> interstate travel; and <br /> WHEREAS, the Freedom Riders encountered mob violence, fire bombings, and police brutality, <br /> and arrest and incarceration for trespassing, unlawful assembly, violating state and local Jim <br /> Crow laws and other alleged offenses; and <br /> WHEREAS, President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy called for a <br /> "cooling off period" and condemned the Freedom Rides as unpatriotic because they <br /> embarrassed the nation on the world stage at the height of the Cold War, to which James <br /> Farmer responded, "We have been cooling off for 350 years, and if we cooled off any more, <br /> 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 <br /> United States; <br /> NOW THEREFORE, the Orange County Board of County Commissioners, on behalf of the <br /> people of Orange County, hereby proclaims May 2021 as Freedom Riders Month in Orange <br /> County in Commemoration of this 60th Anniversary of the Freedom Rides and in tribute to <br /> the Freedom Riders, the women and men who fought for justice in the United States of <br /> America. <br /> The 4th day of May, 2021. <br /> Renee Price, Chair <br /> Orange County Board of Commissioners <br />