March 7, 1961:
Rev. Ivory constructs a mass meeting to honor the Friendship 9 students that were released. He had CORE member James Farmer speak. It was an held to celebrate and praise the actions the boys and show them that what they had done was not for naught. Not only were they heroes in the eyes of their community, but Ivory wanted to show them they were heroes to their nation.
April 24, 1961:
Thomas Gaither of Friendship 9 and of CORE proposed a Freedom Ride to start in Rock Hill. Although some change had occurred in Rock Hill since the initial “Jail, No Bail” actions, this Freedom Ride stop was the first violence experienced during the Freedom Ride movement.
May 9, 1961:
As two of the Freedom Riders were waiting for the bus to come to start the first Freedom Ride out of Rock Hill, they were beaten severely, but refused to retaliate with violence. The two were SNCC’s John Lewis and Albert Bigelow. John Lewis is now a House Representative of Georgia’s 5th District.
Despite this first act of violence toward the Riders, they continued their tour down into the South. They encountered many more acts of violence as members both dropped off and joined in, but the violence only seemed to spurn the activists to continue fighting for what was right.
