News Release

Freedom Riders

News Release Date: September 24, 2010

Lecture by Eric Etheridge and Freedom Riders Robert and Helen Singleton.

June 26, 2011
3:00 p.m.
Free, reservations recommended

Author and photographer Eric Etheridge will present a lecture and slide show on the 1961 Freedom Riders. Freedom Riders Robert and Helen Singleton will also share their unique personal stories, being one of the few married couples to volunteer for the Freedom Rides. A clip from "Freedom Riders", a new documentary film from the PBS series American Experience, will also be shown.

To RSVP by June 24, call the Brown Foundation at [phone] or email by clicking here. Free and open to the public, Sunday, June 26, 3:00 p.m. at Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site, 1515 SE Monroe Street, Topeka, Kansas 66612.

Photography Exhibit

June 1-July 24, 2011
9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Free

Though outlawed in 1955, segregation persisted in many interstate buses and stations in 1961. Beginning in May 1961, several hundred Freedom Riders challenged illegal segregation by riding buses and entering segregated facilities in the South. Many riders-both black and white-were intimidated, beaten, and arrested. The Freedom Rides drew the attention of the Kennedy administration and the nation to the persistence of segregation and the power of nonviolent resistance. The exhibit combines historic mug shots uncovered by author and photographer Eric Etheridge. combined with modern portraits of Freedom Riders taken by him for his book Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders.