No Free Buses.

The Freedom Rides were conceived by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1961 as the next step in protesting the segregated businesses of the southern states, encouraged by the success that the previous year's sit-in movement had in getting whites-only lunch counters to serve African-Americans. The goal of the rides was to compel the newly appointed Kennedy administration to enforce the 1960 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that made segregation of bus terminals and stations serving interstate travelers unconstitutional. Without an order of compliance from the Interstate Commerce Commission, an executive agency that was under President Kennedy's authority, southern states would simply ignore the ruling. Civil rights leaders feared, however, that federal enforcement would be slow in coming if at all, since it could cost the president the support of southern Democrats. As James Farmer, executive director of CORE, recalled, "What...