‘I Remember When the Freedom Riders Came’

ANGERITA WRIGHT

Homemaker, Los Angeles; was a child in Alabama at the start of the civil rights movement in the 1950s

I tell my sons that I survived the 1950s and 60s in Montgomery, Ala. They can survive Los Angeles.

I was in the first grade when the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott began [after Rosa Parks refused to ride at the back of the bus.] At that time and to this day, Montgomerians talk about the bus boycott with a great deal of pride. It brought the people together. Neighbors who prior to the boycott did not speak began sharing car rides to avoid riding the bus. It took a whole community to make the boycott work.

I was in high school before I became actively involved in the civil rights movement. I remember when the freedom riders came to Montgomery and said that it was imperative that everyone in the community come out and vote. I got involved in the voter registration campaign.

I remember asking Mr. Taylor, an elderly neighbor, to register. He said that his vote wouldn’t make a difference. Then I was assigned a voters’ registration station at Red Bell, a bar and grill on Monroe Street--the one street in downtown Montgomery that blacks considered their own. One day, Mr. Taylor stopped by. He could not read or write, but he put an X by the space for signature. Later, he brought his wife, daughter and son-in-law to register.

The most exciting event of the movement for me was meeting the marchers in Montgomery from the Selma-to-Montgomery march in March, 1965. There had been trouble earlier on Bloody Sunday in Selma. Everybody was determined to go through with the march.

I never knew, until that day, that so many people of other races were so concerned about the cause of equality. We were able to embrace freely. That was beautiful.