Freedom Ride

synopsis

Written by Steven Vosburgh, Dusdi Fissette, and Deon Taylor, the film is set in 1961 and details the actions of a multiracial group of young activists, led by twenty-year-old John Lewis, as they decide to take matters into their own hands in the fight against racial discrimination and hate. After signing their own last wills and testaments, these determined Freedom Riders journeyed by bus into the deep segregated South where mob violence and police brutality against Black Americans run rampant. Even with federal law on their side, they are brutally beaten, arrested, and firebombed, all the while remaining nonviolent in the face of violence. In the end, their refusal to back down forces the government to finally take action and desegregate all the buses, trains, public places and facilities used in interstate travel. Never before, with the exception of war, have young Americans been willing to die en masse for the cause of justice. Never before have young Americans changed the hearts and minds of the world in the name of equality.