Monthly Archives: June 2021

Recently, former Provost John Etchemendy sent a letter to the editor in which he made several false and misleading claims criticizing Abolish Stanford and defending the Stanford University Department of Public Safety (SUDPS). Throughout the letter, Etchemendy demonstrated an ignorance of both student demands and abolitionist principles, arguing for a misleading position of community safety that relies fundamentally on carceral solutions.

The former Provosts comments which argue that we should promulgate the standards and style of SUDPS nationwide are alarming in the context of SUDPSs violent history. Etchemendy consistently positions SUDPS as an exception to the long history of police violence, but it was during his tenure as Provost that an SUDPS Deputy was involved in the murder of East Palo Alto resident Pedro Calderon at the base of Stanford foothills. No reparations were ever made to Calderons family, and Stanford as Etchemendys own comments indicate seldom acknowledges that the event occurred.

Etchemendys letter is part of a larger pattern to which weve grown accustomed: Administrators pay lip service to ideas of equality and justice while actively refusing to take any concrete steps to realize these ideals.

Last week, on the one-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd by the racist Minneapolis Police Department, students received an email from four Vice Provosts that thank[ed] our community centers, student leaders and student organizations for continuing a legacy of activism focused on the most vulnerable, citing the Black Lives Matter memorial Abolish Stanford helped construct on the Oval last June, and recognizing those creating change after so much unconscionable loss. Conveniently, their email omitted the fact that when the BLM memorial was actually up on the Oval, we were repeatedly informed that we had to take it down, or the administration would take it down for us.

Acknowledging the importance of scrutinizing University messaging and uplifting the truth, we at Abolish Stanford would like to take the opportunity to respond to some of the wildy deceptive claims advanced in Etchemendys May 20 letter to the editor.

Etchemendy opens with the misleading assertion that a previous Daily article covering our Abolition May rally does not recount any complaints about SUDPS because the department provides a blueprint of community policing. His suggestion is that the Stanford community simply has no complaints about SUDPS. But as many, many, many op-eds in the Daily have already noted, this is categorically false.

Despite Etchemendys assertions that SUDPS officers are familiar with the needs of the student community, interactions between Stanford cops and students have routinely proven otherwise. Stanford police are not waiting in the shadows on Santa Teresa to get to know the community better; they are racially profiling and terrorizing Black students where they live. And when Stanford allows its police to respond to a student mental health call armed with guns holding rubber bullets which can cause fatal nerve damage despite their label as non-lethal weapons they prove that they have ignored the demands of the student community, who have consistently called for non-punitive, non-carceral responses to mental health crises. Regardless of Etchemendys perception, SUDPS police do not know nor support the needs of the student community.

Etchemendys misconception of community policing is not at all unique. Stanford is one of the over 95% of four-year colleges with a student population greater than 2,500 that has their own law enforcement agency; these schools justify the existence of their police forces with similar arguments. But, there are countless instances of racial profiling, brutality, sexual assault and murder by these supposedly exceptional police forces. Thus, when Etchemendy asserts that SUDPS officers are somehow more dedicated to ideas of community safety than the swaggering big city cop, he relies on an already-debunked myth of campus cop exceptionalism so as to disregard the violence that SUDPS has inflicted on countless communities on and off campus.

For a professor whose research interests include logic, Etchemendys characterizations of our demands are startlingly illogical. From day one, Abolish has advocated not only for defunding SUDPS, but abolition everywhere. Etchemendy only manages to make one correct observation: Stanford does not have to maintain its own police force.

As we revealed at our rally, of the 1,015 incidents SUDPS responded to in 2020, 89.7% were nonviolent, and 64% were simply closed with no action. Even in the 10.3% of incidents which were deemed violent, police were and continue to be incapable of preventing harm; they do nothing, or they escalate the situation. And yet, as Etchemendy indicates, it is an active administrative choice to funnel resources into this false form of public safety.

We are not advocating, as Etchemendy suggests, for a utopian solution. Abolition takes work. We understand that it does not happen in a vacuum, and that liberation must extend across the peninsula and center the demands of those who have been most heavily victimized by police violence.

Many students on campus already have no need for campus policing, an institution that serves mainly to protect the financial interests of the University and abuse and surveil communities of color. Public safety results not from million-dollar police budgets and capital projects, but by addressing the social roots of inequality and mental health, and by paying reparations to the surrounding communities that Stanford continues to gentrify, police and vilify.

This is the work we at Abolish Stanford are committed to doing, together. We have no need for policing because the police do not keep us safe; we keep us safe.

Abolish Stanford

Originally posted here:

From the Community | Facing the facts: Abolish Stanford on SUDPS - The Stanford Daily

Ive been doing this work for almost 25 years and its working: More people are talking about abolition, ending anti-Blackness and ending anti-Asian violence, as well as ending transphobia. The need is great and more people are seeing that need.

Dr. Connie Wun

Around the nation, women and girls are doing the collective work necessary to build free futures in their local communities. Dr. Connie Wunfounder of the #ImReady Movement and co-founder of AAPI Women Leadis one of these women.

Both AAPI Women Leadandthe #ImReadyMovementaim to strengthenthe progressivepolitical and social platforms of Asian and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities in the U.S. through the leadership of AAPI womenand girls. And these communities could certainly use the attention. According to the #ImReady Movement site:

AAPI Women Lead hosts a number of community initiatives:

I spoke with Wun about her dreams for freedom and what shes learned from her work with women and femmes as a feminist, scholar, activist and researcher. She offers a broad view of organizing, politics, healing, study and spirituality for us to consider as we work toward a free future.

Satya Vaught: Can you tell us about your organizations and their impact? How are they connected?

Dr. Connie Wun: Im the cofounder of AAPI Women Lead, which amplifies the leadership of Asian and Pacific Islander women, girls and non-binary communities. We do that to end the violence against our communities and in solidarity with other communities of color. Im a research consultant through Transformative Research, which means I train organizations and groups on how to do community driven research. I was recently an editor for Kapernick publishing. We did an online series of articles addressing abolition. The center of most of my work is around the intersections of race, gender and state violence.

All of these projects examine racism, white supremacy, anti-Blackness, patriarchy, capitalism. There is a centralized framework and all of them work together to end the violence against communities of colorspecifically women, girls and non-binary people.

Vaught: Whats the most empowering thing you have found from working with women and femmes?

Wun: Im always amazed by how creative, powerful and communal the people that I work with are. Ive been really sick lately, and with the rise in attention to anti-Asian violence, Ive been extended. Its been mostly women, femmes, non-binary people, queer folks, who have reached out to make sure Im okay. Theres something about the amount of care that women, femme, non-binary, queer folks have for the people that they love. And by people, I mean communities expansively. Theyre fearless in their leadership, but also in their compassion for each other. Theres something important about matriarchal politics and matriarchs. They care differently.

Vaught: What are the challenges and obstacles within your work?

Wun: The misogyny and harassment that I experience outside of the organization. The trolls that will either be in my DMs, messages, social media platforms or emails. Itll generally be from people who are quite racist, anti-Black, because my work emphasizes solidarity, ending anti-Blackness, ending white supremacy. Primarily men harass me.

Whats also been hard is there isnt enough community safety accountability. Theres not much of an infrastructure in place because there is so much violence from the police and criminal justice system against communities of colorspecifically Black, poor, disabled people. We have to defend ourselves against state violence, and at the same time, build a community infrastructure.

One of the other obstacles is the way mainstream organizations are hijacking community-based organizers and educators work for their own platforms and resources.

Vaught: Do you see it this year especially?

Wun: I see it a lot, and its troublesome. Many are calling for more policing and surveillance, while the ones who are most vulnerable and have been organizing from that position have to compete against these platforms. The former do it to enhance their political solutions. For instance, theyre calling for more hate crime legislation and partnering with conservative and neo-liberal politicians. The rest of us are like: What are you doing? Were building community solutions! They get coverage while everyone else is working with survivors of more recent violence, or they themselves have been doing this work for a long time to create community based solutions.

Vaught: What helps you stay motivated to do social justice work?

Wun: Ive been doing this work for almost 25 years. Its the community that keeps me growing and going. The need for liberation and freedom and the fact that more people are coming to do this work keeps me going. Then what I recognize is its working: More people are talking about abolition, ending anti-Blackness and ending anti-Asian violence, as well as ending transphobia. The need is great and more people are seeing that need.

Vaught: How do you create a collective space for people to think, organize and act?

Wun: We create different spaces including healing spaces to bring in healing practitioners and support attendees to decompress and address the harms that are currently happening. We had an event last month with poets and healing practitioners, so that folks could just be held and seen by their practitioners. We have self-defense seminars and community defense seminars.

Our organization is about abolitionist praxis and transformative justice. We have movement-building series where we do political education around the history of violence against Asians and Pacific Islanders here and the U.S. territories. We have end-of-the-year conferences where people come and they learn from different workshops, different educators and they also get healing support from acupuncturists, from herbalists, from martial artists. Well be starting a project that is called Intergenerational Participatory Action Research. Our young people will do research with older generations to tell stories so they can actively own their own stories and then tell them.

Vaught: What does a free world look like to you?

Wun: There wouldnt be racial and gender violence. Our communities would be accountable to each other and not reliant upon a state criminal justice system that has caused harm. We would be able to take care of one another. We would all have access to good health care, critical and good education, and beyond livable wages. We would have gotten rid of prison systems, detentions, ICE. We would have a matriarchal society that is not oppressive. We would be taking care of land, earth. Patriarchy would be dead. I would feel safe being in the world. The people that I love would feel safe being in the world.

Vaught: What work do we need to do to get there?

Wun: Were trying to do it now. We have the hard questions so that people learn to be more accountable to each other and have a systemic analysis of the harm thats been done. We collectively try to end the systemic violence so it doesnt penetrate our interpersonal relationships. That means being accountable in our relationships, neighborhoods, workplaces, creating systems that are accountable to all the peoples, the most marginalized communities especially, and then to Earth!

Ive been thinking about spirituality and of different conceptslike when you hurt someone, youre hurting beyond that one person; youre hurting communities and the spiritual world. Im big on praying to my ancestors, my grandparents, my great-grandparents every morning. I have only learned to do that after I left academia. Academia had me so much in my head. I didnt think to rely on other forms of knowledge. I grew up with a Ouija board, with my family seeing spirits, and I would discount them. Id be like ugh, my family is crazynot realizing how powerful that is that so many of them see spirits. I dont want Western epistemology to be the only form of knowledge that we respect. To get to that place of freedom, we recognize that there are multiple forms of knowledge and power that are not only Western. In fact, Western knowledge has hurt a lot of people,

Vaught: Who are inspirational thinkers, authors and artists that help you?

Wun: I love Beth Richie, who is a professor at University of Illinois Chicago. She has done gender based violence abolitionist work for a long time. Sabina Vaught is really amazing and very generous as an academic, as a friend, and mentor. Mariame Kaba does smart work around abolition and is fearless. Jenny Wun, my sister, is really smart, patient, and compassionate. Shes the cofounder of AAPI Women Lead. Assata Shakurshe too has the politics of care. Yuri Kochiyama was part of the Puerto Rican movement, Black Liberation movementshes a Japanese internment camp survivor. I got to meet her in the 90s, and learned from her in terms of her commitment to people. She was all about solidarity. I think about the goddess Quan Yin who is the goddess of compassion.

The resounding theme is that all of us are unafraid to fight for our communities because we care about them so much.

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The Ms. Q&A: Dr. Connie Wun on Creating Free Futures and a World Without Racial and Gender Violence - Ms. Magazine

As expected, the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) has updated its guidelines for stem cell research. The marquee guideline is the relaxation of the limit of 14 days on how long a human embryo may be kept alive in a lab.

According to the ISSCR the update reflects emerging advances including stem cell-based embryo models, human embryo research, chimeras, organoids, genome editing and ectogenesis.

Even though these recommendations do not have the force of law, they are very influential and pressure will mount in key countries like the UK, the US and Australia to amend or abolish the 14-day rule. Bioethicists have been calling for a revision in a number of journals over the past few years.

Until recently, the 14-day rule was impossible to break because embryos could not be kept alive longer than 11 or 12 days. But recently, two separate research teams in China announced that they had grown primate embryos in vitro for 20 days, opening up tantalising new prospects for stem cell scientists.

The update is the result of a two-year collaboration with 45 international experts in stem cell science, ethics, and law, and was peer-reviewed by scientists and ethicists from 14 countries. They conducted over 100 Zoom meetings.

"The 2021 update presents practical advice for oversight of research posing unique scientific and ethical issues for researchers and the public," says Robin Lovell-Badge, a prominent UK stem cell researcher. "They provide confidence to researchers, clinicians, and the public alike that stem cell science can proceed responsibly, ethically, and remain responsive to public and patient interests.

Strictly speaking, ISSCR has no authority to change rules. But is it recommending that scientists persuade people that his controversial research is necessary, safe and ethical.

But the ISSCRs announcement was quickly criticised (and not just by religious groups, as Lovell-Badges explanatory article in Nature suggested).

Stem cell blogger Paul Knoepfler, a long-time member of the ISSCR, argues that an open-ended guideline is foolish. To me a new 21-day rule would make the most sense for a few years to see how work proceeds and learn from the experiences with the somewhat later embryos. Then revisit the limit.

Canadian feminist bioethicist, Francoise Baylis, wrote in The Conversation that:

The decision to jettison the established 14-day rule is a mistake. There is good reason to recommend public discussion and debate on the merits of this rule. There is no legitimate reason, however, for this discussion to focus narrowly on extending the research time limit. For example, an equally legitimate public conversation could be had about shortening instead of lengthening the time frame for permitted research.

More importantly, there is no legitimate reason to have removed the 14-day rule in advance of any public engagement that might endorse the existing limit or advocate an alternative policy. Doing so changes the facts on paper and potentially also in practice.

Two Republican members of the US Congress, Representative Chris Smith, from New Jersey, and Senator Mike Braun, of Indiana, were scathing.

The ISSCR has shown an utter disregard for the value and dignity of human life, said Rep. Smith. Its previous rule allowing scientists to create and experiment on human embryos up to 14 days was already unethical and morally repugnant, but the ISSCR has now removed all restraint, allowing unborn humans at any stage of development to be experimented on, manipulated, and destroyed.

Michael Cook is editor of BioEdge

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Stem cell experts relax call for abolition of 14-day rule - BioEdge

Valda Harris Montgomery describes seeing the Freedom Riders enter her parents' Montgomery home in 1961 to hide from a white mob. Montgomery Advertiser

In May 1961, 13 men and women boarded a bus in Washington, D.C., bound for New Orleans to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision desegregating public schools.

Their mission was twofold, with the secondgoal being to challenge the laws regarding segregated interstate travel in the South.

They did so, but not without fear in the face of violence. The buses they rode on were bombed. They were beaten and jailed but their spirits were not broken.

More than 400 people would eventually participate in the movement known as the Freedom Rides.These are the stories of the 13 people students, a pastor and retired educators among them who started it all.

More: Freedom Riders revolutionized American travel, transit 60 years ago

Raised by a professor who taught divinity at Howard University, James Farmer Jr. was a pacifist who sought to achieve racial justice through nonviolent activism. Often a target of racial violence, Farmer helped to shape the Civil Rights Movement when he launched The Freedom Rides to challenge the efforts to block the desegregation of interstate busing.

Freedom Riders Charles Person, right, and James Peck on the bus in 1961, with James Farmer, the head of CORE, in the background.(Photo: Johnson Publishing Company)

The national director and co-founder of the first Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) chapter in 1942, Farmer set the foundation for the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts in the mid-1960s.

He spent 41 days in Mississippi jails. One of the most memorable moments of that time, he said, waswhen those jailed alongside him in steel and concrete cells with straw-filled mattresses sang freedom songs together, despite being threatened by guards.

"We were told that the racists, the segregationists, would go to any extent to hold the line on segregation in interstate travel. So when we began the ride I think all of us were prepared for as much violence as could be thrown at us. We were prepared for the possibility of death," Farmer said in a 1985 interview.

He would go on to serve as assistant secretary of health, education and welfare under PresidentNixon. In 1998, Farmer was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

When we left Atlanta for Birmingham on May 14, 1961 we knew that we were in for a very rough reception upon arrival.

James Peck was born into a wealthy family in New York City. He dropped out of Harvard University to become a full-time activist and was the only person to participate in both the Freedom Rides and Journey of Reconciliation.

By encouraging and supporting actions such as that in Montgomery, we who adhere to the principles of nonviolence hope to hasten complete abolition of segregation within our social system, Peck wrote in COREs introduction to Martin Luther Kings 1957 article, Our Struggle: The Journey of Montgomery.

Freedom Rider James Peck leaving the airport in Birmingham, Alabama, to board a flight for New Orleans.(Photo: Alabama Department of Archives and History. Donated by Alabama Media Group. Photo by Norman Dean, Birmingham News)

Peck would later go on to protest against the Vietnam War.

One of the three women to participate in the early days of the Freedom Rides, Genevieve Hughes quit her job as a stockbroker to become the field secretary of CORE and civil rights activist.

"I figured Southern women should be represented to the South and the nation would realize all Southern people don't think alike," she said of her reason to join CORE.

Members of the Congress of Racial Equality gather in Washington with a map of a route they plan to take to test segregation in bus terminal restaurants and rest rooms in the South on May 4, 1961. From left are Edward Blankenheim, Tucson, Arizona; James Farmer, New York City; Genevieve Hughes, Chevy Chase, Maryland; the Rev. B. Elton Cox, High Point, North Carolina, and Henry Thomas, St. Augustine, Florida.(Photo: Byron Rollins, AP)

She, along with John Lewis and Al Bigelow sustained injuries when several white men attacked them at a bus terminal in Rock Hill, South Carolina, on May 10, 1961.

Joe Perkins was the first Freedom Rider arrested for sitting at a whites-only shoeshine stand in Charlotte, North Carolina, according to PBS. After spending two days in jail, he caught up with the group and led the Freedom Riders on the Greyhound bus, which was burned in Anniston, Alabama.

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Perkins was recruited by CORE in August 1960 and became known as a masterful organizer.

Born in Owensboro, Kentucky, Perkins was educated at Kentucky State University andserved in the Army for two years. Helaterpursued a graduate degree at the University of Michigan.

Before 1961: How Irene Morgan and Bruce Boynton paved the way for the Freedom Riders

Walter Bergman graduated high school when he was only 15 and was drafted into the Army during World War I. Whenhe saw the devastation in Germany, he became a pacifist.

A former union activist and college professor, Bergman became a victim of McCarthyism in 1953 when the state department seized his passport while he was teachingin Denmark. He retired from teaching and became a Freedom Rider when he was 61 years old.

The oldest of the original 13 members, Bergman suffered a stroke after being savagely beaten by the Ku Klux Klan in Anniston, Alabama. He would never walk again. Bergman was awarded $35,000 of the $2 million he sought in lawsuit against the federal government in 1983.

A civil rights activist alongside her husband Walter Bergman, Frances Bergman was a school teacher and member of the American Civil Liberties Union and Socialist Party of America. After she and her husband retired from education, they volunteered to ride on the first bus that left Washington on May 4, 1961. At 57, she was the oldest of the female Freedom Riders.

A Boston native, Bigelow studied at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He workedas an architect before heading off to World War II with the Navy.

Then and now: Could the Freedom Riders make a difference against todays racism?

Bigelow was an activist prior to his time as a Freedom Rider. He opposed the use of nuclear weapons after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, and opened up his home to survivors of Hiroshima who were seeking reconstructive surgery. Following the war, he and a small crew set out for the South Pacific to disrupt and protest atomic testing. They were jailed for 60 days in Hawaii.

He was 55 when he joined the Freedom Riders.Bigelow and former U.S. Rep. John Lewis were the first to face violence after attempting to integrate a whites-only waiting room in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Lewis was struck first as Bigelow stepped in between Lewis and his attackers.

It had to look strange to these guys to see a big, strong white man putting himself in the middle of a fistfight like this, not looking at all as if he was ready to throw a punch, but not looking frightened either, Lewis wrote in his memoir Walking with the Wind.

Freedom Riders in the back of a police van after their arrest at the Greyhound station in Birmingham, Alabama in May 1961.(Photo: Alabama Department of Archives and History. Donated by Alabama Media Group. Photo by Robert Adams or Norman Dean, Birmingham News.)

McDonald was 29 years old when he joined the Freedom Riders and was considered the least disciplined of the group when it came to adhering to its non-violent mantra.

As a teen in the late 1940s, McDonald, according to author Raymond Arsenault, campaigned for a Progressive Party presidential candidate. Later, he became a folk singer in New York City before joining the Freedom Riders. McDonald saw the bus trip as an adventure, and said he was brought along for his singing ability.

I was not sent because I had a lot of intellect, he recalled in 1969; . . . certainly I was not in there because I wanted to be like Gandhi, he said in Arsenaults book Freedom Riders.

McDonald would later go to work on television for BET, where he hosted two programs. He was also the executive director of the Yonkers Human Rights Commission and a 30-year activist for the NAACP.

Prior to becoming a Freedom Rider, Blankenheims experience as a young Marine in North Carolina, where he witnessed segregation and racism, laid the groundwork for his role in the Civil Rights movement.

After leaving the military, Blankenheim enrolled in classes at the University of Arizona, where he helped Black students suffering from housing discrimination. He also joined the NAACP and soon after was offered a spot as a Freedom Rider.

Blankenheim was 27 when the bus he rode intoAnniston, Alabamawas set on fire on Mothers Day 1961.He the blaze, but lost several teeth after being hit in the face with a tire iron.

Well roast them alive! Well roast them alive! is what the crowd shouted, Blankenheim told NPR in 2001.Blankenheim worked for a few years in the South testing bus stations to make certain that they were following the laws and were fully integrated before eventually settling in San Francisco, where he worked as a carpenter.

Thomas, who grew up in Florida, was only 19 years old when he joined the Freedom Riders. He too was one of the riders attacked in Anniston, Alabama, after their bus caught fire.

But I then knew that Anniston was a terrible, terrible place, he told an interviewer in 2017.

D'Army Bailey, left, chairman of The National Civil Rights Museum Foundation, and Hank Thomas, who was on the firebombed bus as a Freedom Rider in 1961, watch a replica of the bus burn at the Tennessee State Fairgrounds Feb. 7, 1991.(Photo: Nina Alexandrenko / The Tennessean)

Thomas later served in the Vietnam War as a medic in 1965. He was wounded in combat and awarded the Purple Heart. While serving in Vietnam, just a few years after his time as a Freedom Rider, he shot down a Confederate flag flying above an Army base.

An entrepreneur, Thomas first bought a laundromat before going on to own several fast-food franchises and hotels.

Eleven of the 13 original Freedom Riders sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality in 1961.(Photo: Johnson Publishing Company)

Cox, 29, was a pastor in High Point, North Carolina, when he founded the first Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) chapter. After meeting with James Farmer, director of CORE, he was asked to become a Freedom Rider.

One of 16 children, Cox said he protested an A&W Restaurant in Illinois as a teen because of its shoddy service toward Black customers. In high school, Cox and other students were successful in persuading staff to stop the singing of a song in music class that he said had degrading racial overtones.

In December 1961, Cox lead a peaceful demonstration in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he was arrested and charged. In 1965 in Cox v. Louisiana, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor, on the groundsLouisianalaw deprived him the right to free speech and assembly.

Cox was arrested nearly 20 times during the civil rights movement and spent numerous days in jail.

Now the most famous of first Freedom Riders, Lewis is considered one of the Big Six leaders of the Civil Rights movement. He represented Georgia in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1987 to 2020.

Not long after the group set out, Lewis, then 21, was attacked in Rock Hill, South Carolina. In another attack during the rides, a white mob beat Lewis unconscious in Montgomery, Alabama. Jailed numerous times, he also spent nearly 40 days in the Mississippi State Prison, known as Parchman Farm, for entering a white restroom as a Freedom Rider. For several years until his death, beginning in 2014, Lewis posted his mugshots on Twitter each year to mark the anniversary of his Mississippi arrest.

In 1961, Mississippi arrested wave after wave of Freedom Riders that dared to enter an "all-white" area of the bus station, including future Congressman John Lewis. They were arrested, convicted and sent to Mississippi's most notorious prison, the State Penitentiary at Parchman. Lewis was finally freed on July 7, 1961.(Photo: Mississippi Department of Archives and History)

During the time I was being beaten and other times when I was being beaten, I had what I called an executive session with myself. I said Im gonna take it, Im prepared. On the Freedom Ride, I was prepared to die, he said during a 2011 appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Person was born in Atlanta, Georgia, where hatred toward Black people was rampant. He wanted to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but during the time many universities weren't willing to look beyond his skin color to consider his intellect. After multiple denials, Person attended Morehouse College and waded deep into the politics and racism of society by participating in rallies and facing discrimination head-on. He would spend weeks behind bars after being arrested at protests and never failed to completehomework assignments

Charles Person, one of the original 13 Freedom Riders, sits on his front porch at his home in Atlanta, on Thursday, April 29, 2021. "What I would offer them is that the chance comes around where you'll have the opportunity to change the world or to make a difference and you have to make a decision," said Person on his advice to young activists. "It's easy to sit and complain about things, that are wrong, but it's more important that you find a way to do something about it to make things better."(Photo: Joshua L. Jones, Athens Banner-Herald USA TODAY NETWORK)

He joined the Freedom Riders at age 18 and would go down in history as the youngest original member.

Though he wasn't on the bus that caught on fire in Anniston, Alabama, Person didn't come out of the journey unscathed. He experienced nightmares some men only see in war: burning vehicles with the doors held shut while people burned inside, caravans looking for people to lynch and blood leaking into his eyes after relentless beatings.

In May 1961, the first Freedom Riders departed on their journey through the South to challenge segregated buses, bus terminals, lunch counters and other facilities associated with interstate travel.

These activists would be confronted, often violently, by police and mobs of white citizens, drawing international attention to social inequity in what became a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement.

This year, the USA TODAY Network is examining the legacy of these trailblazers and how it informs our current moment.

Read or Share this story: https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2021/06/01/meet-13-original-freedom-riders/4882573001/

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Paving the way: Meet the 13 original Freedom Riders who changed travel in the South - Tennessean