Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Autobiography of a Freedom Rider: My Life as a Foot Soldier for Civil Rights
    Unavailable
    Autobiography of a Freedom Rider: My Life as a Foot Soldier for Civil Rights
    Unavailable
    Autobiography of a Freedom Rider: My Life as a Foot Soldier for Civil Rights
    Ebook186 pages2 hours

    Autobiography of a Freedom Rider: My Life as a Foot Soldier for Civil Rights

    By Thomas Armstrong and Natalie Bell

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    In the segregated Deep South when lynching and Klansmen and Jim Crow laws ruled, there stood a line of foot soldiers ready to sacrifice their lives for the right to vote, to enter rooms marked "White Only," and to live with simple dignity. They were called Freedom Riders and Thomas M. Armstrong was one of them. This is his story as well as a look ahead at the work still to be done.

    June, 1961. Thomas M. Armstrong, determined to challenge segregated interstate bus travel in Mississippi, courageously walks into a Trailways bus station waiting room in Jackson.  He is promptly arrested for his part in a strategic plan to gain national attention.  The crime?  Daring to share breathing space marked "Whites Only."  Being of African-American descent in the Mississippi Deep South was literally a crime if you overstepped legal or even unspoken cultural bounds in 1961.  The consequences of defying entrenched societal codes could result in brutal beatings, displacement, even murder with no recourse for justice in a corrupt political machine, thick with the grease of racial bias. 

    The Freedom Rides were carefully orchestrated and included both black-and-white patriots devoted to the cause of de-segregation. Autobiography of a Freedom Rider details the strategies employed behind the scenes that resulted in a national spectacle of violence so stunning in Alabama and Mississippi that Robert Kennedy called in Federal marshals. Armstrong's burning need to create social change for his fellow black citizens provides the backdrop of this richly woven memoir that traces back to his great-grandparents as freed slaves, examines the history of the Civil Rights Movement, the devastating personal repercussions Armstrong endured for being a champion of those rights, the sweet taste of progressive advancement in the past 50 years, and a look ahead at the work still to be done.

    Hundreds were arrested for their part in the Freedom Rides, Thomas M. Armstrong amongst them. But it is the authors' quest to give homage to "the true heroes of the civil rights movement . . . the everyday black Southerners who confronted the laws of segregation under which they lived . . . the tens of thousands of us who took a chance with our lives when we decided that no longer would we accept the legacy of exclusion that had robbed our ancestors of hope and faith in a just society."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHealth Communications Inc EB
    Release dateApr 20, 2011
    ISBN9780757391712
    Unavailable
    Autobiography of a Freedom Rider: My Life as a Foot Soldier for Civil Rights

    Read more from Thomas Armstrong

    Related to Autobiography of a Freedom Rider

    Related ebooks

    Historical Biographies For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      A Daughter’s Story: White Supremacy and the Poor People’s Campaign

      May 18, 2022

      UCS is honored to be a mobilizing partner for the Poor People’s Campaign, a nonviolent call to moral revival. If you can join us in Washington, DC on June 18th in solidarity with their march and assembly, I hope you will. I’ve been fortunate to visit

      4 min read

    • Article

      Great Civil Rights Heroes

      Feb 28, 2020

      Great Civil Rights Heroes
      12 min read

    • Article

      What Martin Luther King’s Message And Methods Can Teach Us Today

      Mar 21, 2022

      Despite living on this Earth less than 40 years, Martin Luther King Jr. became a man for all times. He did this through constant evolution and improvisation.  Over the years, King expanded his focus from issues primarily affecting Black people to the

      4 min read

    • Article

      Our Common Humanity

      May 1, 2020

      Our Common Humanity
      10 min read

    • Article

      America’s Second Sin

      Apr 15, 2019

      America’s Second Sin
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Work We Have to Do

      Sep 4, 2020

      On 17 July 2020, the United States lost two legendary freedom fighters, the Rev. CT Vivian and US Congressman John Lewis. The two men were brilliant, disciplined and courageous leaders in the struggle to expand democracy in the United States. To desc

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Power of “We”

      Dec 4, 2020

      The Power of “We”
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Power of “We”

      Dec 4, 2020

      The Power of “We”
      3 min read

    • Article

      Jesse Jackson: Selma's mirror

      Mar 15, 2023

      The Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, is famed as the site of Bloody Sunday, the violent 1965 police riot that sparked a national outrage powerful enough to drive the Voting Rights Act through the Congress. This past weekend, my son Jonathan an

      3 min read

    • Article

      To Destroy America

      Sep 1, 2020

      To Destroy America
      6 min read

    • Article

      Seeds Of Honesty In A US Reckoning On Race

      Jun 23, 2020

      Whether on Zoom calls or in community picnics, more Americans are reflecting on the truth about race relations. Is this finally a moment for a national introspection?

      2 min read

    Reviews for Autobiography of a Freedom Rider

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words