Multiple generations of Black civil rights activists met at Xavier University on Wednesday to honor a group of Freedom Riders after they finally completed a disrupted bus journey from Washington D.C. to New Orleans 65 years after the original trip was halted.
The original ride, the first in a series of trips to protest Jim Crow laws, was interrupted when a segregationist mob firebombed their buses in Anniston, Alabama on May 14, 1961. The 13 riders were able to escape the bus before it exploded but sustained beatings from the mob. The next day, they flew directly to New Orleans and sought refuge at Xavier University after hotels refused to host them out of fears of further violence.
Leaving D.C. on Oct. 17 and stopping in historical cities like Selma and Jackson, the latest cohort of Freedom Riders completed the bus route their predecessors were unable to. Among the riders were original participants of the 1961 Freedom Rides, including Steve Thomas, who travelled from Jackson to Montgomery…