Civil rights leaders were disgruntled over Kennedy's reluctance to propose civil rights legislation. Kennedy achieved smaller measures like the Area Redevelopment Act, but civil rights activists were unimpressed. In answer to their protests, Kennedy could only say that it was an inopportune time.

Forcing the Issue

In 1960, the Supreme Court ruled in Boynton v. Virginia that segregation in interstate travel was unconstitutional, but in 1961 blacks were still relegated to substandard restrooms and restaurants at bus and train terminals. Leaders of the Congress of Racial Equality planned an interracial Freedom Ride for the spring of 1961 to force the federal government to uphold the Supreme Court ruling.

The Freedom Riders set out on Greyhound and Trailways buses on their journey from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans. They encountered relatively little resistance until they reached Alabama on May 14. Mobs led by the Ku Klux Klan attacked the Freedom Riders and firebombed one of the buses. Local law enforcement failed to offer protection.

The next morning, news of the violent attack was plastered across the front pages of newspapers across the country. Bobby Kennedy and the Justice Department had been notified of the Freedom Rides before they began, but it was news to the president. The administration was just starting to recover from the Bay of Pigs fiasco, and Kennedy was preparing for a trip to Europe to meet with Khrushchev for the first time. He was dismayed with this latest negative publicity for the country. His asked his trusted civil rights aide Harris Wofford to influence his “goddamned friends” to call off the Freedom Ride. Wofford had no power over the riders and was at a loss to do anything to affect the outcome.

Protecting the Riders

The riders were determined to continue, but they soon learned from Bobby Kennedy that no bus driver was willing to drive. It also appeared that more violence would result from continuing the rides. Radio broadcasts announced a foreboding statement made by Alabama Governor John Patterson: “[T]he citizens of the state are so enraged that I cannot guarantee protection for this bunch of rabble-rousers.” The Freedom Riders decided to call off the ride and fly from Birmingham to New Orleans for a concluding celebratory rally scheduled for May 17. The airport, however, proved even less safe than the bus. Bomb threats trapped the riders inside. Bobby sent his assistant John Seigenthaler to help the stranded riders. The situation was resolved and the group reached New Orleans in time for the rally. But it wasn't over. A group of ten dedicated riders decided to resume the rides. They left from Nashville and reached Birmingham on May 17.

When the ten riders reached Birmingham, they were swiftly taken into custody and arrested. Officials insisted the riders were being jailed for their own protection, and they did not remain in custody. Police Commissioner Bull Connor escorted the group to the Alabama-Tennessee border and left them there, warning them not to come back. They did. They drove to Birmingham and tried to catch a bus to Montgomery.

This latest newsworthy disaster put an already uneasy Kennedy in an even worse mood. Early in the morning, still dressed in his pajamas, he met in his bedroom with Bobby, Burke Marshall, and Byron White to discuss how to proceed. They decided it was unwise to nationalize the Alabama National Guard. Instead, Governor John Patterson was recruited to protect the riders. At first, he was an unwilling participant, even evading Kennedy's calls. In the end, Bobby threatened that if Patterson refused to protect the Freedom Riders, federal troops would. This was enough to get Patterson's attention.

Next, Bobby had to find a driver for the bus. When the bus company supervisor in Birmingham claimed that a bus driver was unavailable, Bobby angrily demanded the supervisor call someone, even Mr. Greyhound himself. Bobby's tactics worked, and on May 20, under the protection of state troopers, the riders began their journey to Montgomery. When they arrived in Montgomery, state troopers withdrew their protection. As the riders emerged from the bus, they were attacked by a white mob that beat them with clubs, bats, and chains.

Bobby immediately contacted his brother, who made the decision to send federal marshals for protection. Martin Luther King Jr. was on his way to Montgomery to speak at Ralph Abernathy's First Baptist Church, and Patterson warned he wasn't sure if he could protect King. King arrived on May 21 and was escorted by marshals to the church. As King spoke to the crowd of more than 1,000 inside, a white mob slowly encircled the building. Federal marshals were stationed outside, but the mob managed to break some windows with rocks.

In the meantime, tear gas was used to hold off the mob until the National Guard arrived. King and the participants remained trapped inside the church, and even the National Guard could not calm the mob enough to let the worshipers leave the church until the early morning hours of May 22.

Bobby Kennedy hoped that this was the last of the rides. But on May 24, the riders continued their crusade. When they were arrested in Jackson, Mississippi, Bobby publicly requested in an NBC interview that the rides have a cooling-off period while he worked on securing the release of those arrested. James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality, the group that organized the rides, responded that blacks had spent the last few hundred years cooling off, and “[i]f we got any cooler we'd be in a deep freeze.” King stood behind Farmer's position and also refused to support a suspension of the rides.

Refusing to Publicly Condemn Discrimination

The president began to feel the pressure to make a statement in support of civil rights. He met with activist and actor Harry Belafonte, who urged him to speak out publicly in support of the Freedom Rides. Harris Wofford believed the president needed to address the nation on the moral issue of discrimination. Wofford even appealed to Kennedy's strong interest in foreign affairs and the positive effect it could have in that area.

Kennedy, however, remained strongly opposed to such an action. He still believed that he had done as much as he could possibly do, especially after May 29, when Bobby Kennedy announced he had submitted a petition to the Interstate Commerce Commission requesting the creation of regulations forbidding segregation in interstate travel facilities. If this was not enough, asked Kennedy, what more could he do to please civil rights proponents?