WCNY has produced Voices from the Back of the Bus, a half-hour television program focused on the Central New York connection to the historic 1961 Freedom Rides, an American Civil Rights Movement milestone.  The show was shot before a live audience at Fowler High School in Syracuse, New York. 

Hosted by Susan Arbetter, WCNY’s Director of News and Public Affairs, Voices from the Back of the Bus  features a discussion by panelists who were involved in the Freedom Rides of 1961 and in civil rights protests in Syracuse.  The panelists are Syracuse resident Rev. LeRoy Glenn Wright, who recounts his experience as one of the 400 Freedom Riders and Ann and Dale Tussing, members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) that organized the Freedom Rides as well as non-violent civil rights protests in Central New York.  Voices from the Back of the Bus explores our region’s own Freedom Riders connection and legacy, a legacy that shows that the actions of individuals do make a difference.  Following the taping of Voices from the Back of the Bus, the audience, which was able to experience, firsthand, what goes into creating a television show, also had the opportunity to ask questions of the panel.  For the question and answer session, the panel was joined by additional guests, Syracuse Chief of Police Frank Fowler and Ithaca College student Tariq Meyers, a participant in a commemorative 2011 Student Freedom Ride.

The Freedom Riders were a courageous group of civil rights activists who challenged segregation in America’s south.  Between May and November, 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans of all ages and from all walks of life, committed to the ideals of non-violent protest, risked their lives by  traveling together on buses and trains throughout a South that in many places was unwelcoming and segregated.  They were attacked by mobs, beaten and jailed but they didn’t give up.  On September 22, 1961 the Interstate Commerce Commission issued an order ending the racial segregation in interstate bus and rail terminals that had existed for generations.  The two-hour film, Freedom Riders, aired nationally on May 16 on PBS' American Experience to mark the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides.

Following the Voices from the Back of the Bus panel discussion, the audience had the opportunity to participate in a Town Hall meeting where they could ask questions of the Voices panel as well as of Syracuse Chief of Police Frank Fowler and 2011 Student Freedom Ride participant Tariq Meyers from Ithaca College, who joined the panelists on the stage.

Despite two U.S. Supreme Court decisions, one in 1946 (Morgan v. Virginia) and 1960, (Boynton V. Virgina) that ruled that segregation was illegal on interstate buses and trains and in interstate transportation facilities, some states in the South still practiced interstate travel segregation in 1961.  The Freedom Riders set out to only draw attention to this continuing segregation, especially the attention of the Kennedy White House, and to work to change it.

After the Civil War, equal rights for African-Americans, particularly in the South, came slowly, as long-held attitudes and behaviors were resistant to change, even though key pieces of federal legislation were passed to ensure equality.  The 13^th Amendment to the Constitution in 1865 outlawed slavery; the 14^th Amendment in 1868 made citizens of persons born in the U.S. and afforded equal protection of the laws to all citizens; and the 15^th Amendment in 1870 extended the right to vote to all citizens regardless of race.  But  an 1896 decision by the Supreme Court muddied the waters.  In the Plessy v. Ferguson case, the Supreme Court affirmed the right of states to enact segregation laws under a separate but equal approach. 

This decision encouraged the passage by some states of what were called Jim Crow laws (the name came from a black character in minstrel shows).  Most of these laws were passed from the 1880s through the 1960s.  They limited the rights of African-Americans and enforced segregation.  The most common types of these laws outlawed intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clients separated.  So, for example, in some states there were separate entrances and treatment facilities for blacks and whites at hospitals, in bus and train stations, and in restaurants.  There were separate restrooms and separate drinking fountains, separate schools and even separate cemeteries!  In Georgia, there was a Jim Crow law forbidding blacks from using parks built for white citizens, and conversely, whites couldn’t use the parks built for black citizens.  In Texas, blacks couldn’t visit the public libraries, which were for whites only, but instead had to go to a black-only branch library.

The Civil Rights Movement, which some historians define as occurring from 1954-1968, was a powerful social movement with the goal of ending racial inequality.  Some of the events leading up to the 1961 Freedom Rides included not only the 1946 and 1960 Supreme Court cases mentioned earlier, but other legal cases and non-violent protests.  Several key legal decisions and events are listed below. 

May 17, 1954:  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Brown v. Board of Education, that separate educational facilities are inherently illegal.  The decision essentially put a legal end to racial segregation in public schools, although it took many years to accomplish this across the country.

December 1, 1955:  Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, AL bus.  A boycott of Montgomery buses was organized and by putting enormous economic pressure on the bus system, which was facing near-bankruptcy, forced the desegregation of Montgomery buses. 

November 13, 1956:  In the Supreme Court case Browder v. Gayle, Montgomery’s bus segregation law was declared illegal. 

September 4, 1957:  Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus calls in the Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine African-American students, the Little Rock Nine, from entering the previously segregated Little Rock High School.  President Eisenhower took over the National Guard and deployed additional federal troops to protect the Little Rock Nine from segregationist mobs, ensuring they could safely attend the school.  But they continued to be subjected to physical and verbal abuse from some of the white students in the school.

February 1, 1960:  Four black college students in Greensboro, NC sat at a white-only lunch counter at a Greensboro Woolworth’s.   Students in other cities followed the lead of the “Greenbsboro Four” by staging non-violent sit-ins at Woolworth’s across the South.  By July, 1960 Woolworth’s desegregated their stores.

By 1961, racial segregation in interstate travel was still commonplace in many places, so to challenge this and draw attention to the problem, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) recruited and trained the first 13 Freedom Riders, an interracial group consisting of seven blacks and six whites, ranging in age from 18 to 61.  They were given three days of intensive instruction in non-violent techniques in Washington, DC before boarding two different buses, on May 4, for the South.  They sat wherever they pleased and initially received little notice or encountered any resistance.  They planned to arrive in New Orleans on May 17, on the anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

In Atlanta, they met with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who feared for their safety, as did the administration of President John F. Kennedy.   The further South the Freedom Riders travelled, the more resistance they began to encounter.  Near Anniston, Alabama, a white supremacist mob first slashed the tires on one of the buses the Freedom Riders were travelling and then set the bus on fire.  When the Freedom Riders eventually escaped from the bus a waiting mob physically attacked them.  The other bus carrying Freedom Riders was attacked in Birmingham, Alabama.  Although the Riders voted to continue to New Orleans, no bus driver was willing to take them.  Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent his special assistant, John Siegenthaler, to get the Freedom Riders out of Alabama - by plane, not bus. 

But the Freedom Rides were not over.  A group of young students from Nashville, Tennessee, involved with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), voted to continue the Freedom Rides and started boarding buses bound for the south.  Hundreds of others, including students from Ithaca’s Cornell University, joined the rides in the following weeks and months, staying true to the nonviolent approach of the Rides.  Some were beaten, many jailed, but the Freedom Riders continued to ride. 

In just six months the Freedom Riders achieved a major milestone in the Civil Rights Movement.  On September 22, 1961 the Interstate Commerce Commission issued an order desegregating interstate travel.  By November 1, the Jim Crow signs came down in bus and train terminals and seating aboard interstate buses was without regard to “race, color, creed or national origin.”  Just a few years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which required equal access to public places and outlawed employment discrimination and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which suspended discriminatory literacy and other voter tests and authorized federal supervision of voter registration in states where such tests were being used.  If voting discrimination occurred, the Act authorized replacing local registrars with federal examiners.  The racial landscape of America, especially the South, was changing.

The Voices from the Back of the Bus firsthand account by Rev. LeRoy Glenn Wright of his Freedom Rider experience is not the only Central New York connection to the historic rides or to efforts to fight slavery, end racism, and foster equality for all.  In the 1800s, Upstate New York was known for both its abolitionist and women’s rights efforts.  The Underground Railroad, a secret route for transporting escaped slaves or freedom seekers, as they are sometimes called, ran through the area and involved people like Harriet Tubman of Auburn.  In 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and four other women organized the First Women’s Rights Convention, which was held in Seneca Falls and attended by activists fighting for the rights of women as well as African-Americans. Collected here are some of the stories of people, past and present, with Central New York connections, who have raised their voices, picked up their pens, wielded paintbrushes, ran for political office,  petitioned for legislation, achieved excellence in spite of racism, or served as educators, all inspired by a desire to make America a more welcoming place for all.    

Walt Shepperd’s 1964 Mississippi Summer

Walt Shepperd is a three-time winner of the NYS Press Association’s Writer of the Year award.  A New York City native and 1962 Colgate University graduate, this long-time Syracusan has worked as a teacher and political organizer.  In the 1960s he founded the Nickel Review in which he wrote about civil rights, women’s rights, and the anti-war movement.  In the 1970s he founded the Media Unit, a training program for teenagers interested in pursuing careers in the theater or television.   Mr. Shepperd reflects on his time spent in Mississippi in the summer of 1964 in the essay linked below:

PDF document: Walt Sheppard's 1964 Mississippi Summer

The Jerry Rescue Monument

The Freedom Riders were blacks and whites working together to effect change.  In Syracuse, in 1851, black and white Syracusans came to the aid of a fugitive slave who had been arrested by federal marshals who planned to return him to his “rightful”master in the South.  William “Jerry” Henry, who had been working in Syracuse, was arrested under the terms of the federal Fugitive Slave Law for the crime of escaping from slavery. A crowd of area residents broke down the jail door freeing Jerry and arranged transport for him to Canada where he wouldn’t have to fear arrest.  This action helped mobilize anti-slavery opposition in Syracuse, making it a center on the Underground Railroad. 

The “Jerry Rescue” as it came to be known, is commemorated in a monument in the heart of Syracuse, not far from where the rescue took place.  The monument was erected in 1990, with a community fundraising effort led by Chester Whiteside, who as Syracuse’s first black disc jockey in the 1960s, first black television commentator, and first black firefighter, was a trailblazer himself.  The monument features Jerry surrounded by two key Syracuse abolitionists and organizers of Jerry’s rescue, the Reverends Samuel J. May and Jermain Loguen.  The monument’s message is a powerful one: people working together can right injustices.  After the Jerry Rescue, no African-American in Syracuse was ever sent back to slavery.

Malchester Reeves and Ernie Davis

Photo provided courtesy of Syracuse University

Two Syracuse University African-American students made headlines in the early 1960s.  On November 7, 1961 Malchester Reeves, a 24-year-old part-time student, became the first African-American elected to public office in Syracuse.  He ran for and won the position of 15^th Ward supervisor.  Also in 1961, within months of the Freedom Rides, SU college football hero, Ernie Davis, became the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy.  While travelling with his teammates to games in the South, he faced racial insults, was refused service at restaurants and hotels, and endured punches, from Texas players that referees ignored, in the 1960 Cotton Bowl that earned SU the national football championship.  Davis became a symbol of hope for many young African-Americans.   The Express, a movie about his life, premiered in Syracuse in 2008.

Joanne Grant (Rabinowitz)

Born in Utica in 1930, Joanne Grant graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in history and journalism.  She was an activist who documented the grassroots efforts of the Civil Rights Movement through her reporting, writings, and filmmaking.  As a black reporter, she courageously ventured into small towns in rural Alabama, Mississippi, and George in the early 1960s, reporting on what she saw and getting arrested.  She worked as a research assistant to W.E.B. DuBois, co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP).  Her 1968 book Black Protest: History, Documents and Analysis 1619 to the Present is still a standard text for teaching African-American history. 

Dorothy Cotton

Dorothy Cotton has been an Ithaca resident for nearly 30 years.  But she too was active in the Civil Rights Movement, working closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and in 2010 received the National Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum.  She was the Education Director for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for 12 years. Working closely with Dr. King, Dorothy served on his executive staff and traveled with him to Oslo, Norway, where he received the Nobel Peace Prize.  At the request of Dr. King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, she served as the Vice President for Field Operations for the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta.  One of her latest projects involves the Dorothy Cotton Institute, hosted by the Center for Transformative Action at Cornell University, which will offer education, leadership and youth development programs. 

Syracuse Fourth Graders Get State Law in Honor of Rosa Parks Passed

In 2008, a group of fourth grade students from Syracuse’s Van Duyn Elementary School worked with their teacher, Marnie Coggins, to request state legislation honoring civil rights activist Rosa Parks be passed.  They had been studying the Civil Rights Movement in their classes and wanted to do something.  The students, joined by some of the school’s third and fifth graders, wrote letters to Senator DeFrancisco’s office requesting annual state recognition of Rosa Parks.  Ms. Coggins said it turned out to be a terrific exercise for the children in learning, firsthand, how the democratic process works, and that their voices can be heard.  The end result:  their suggestion became a New York State law on July 21, 2008.  The law, sponsored by Senator DeFrancisco, permits and encourages bus companies in New York State to honor Rosa Parks by reserving one seat on each bus in her memory on Rosa Parks Day (celebrated on February 4, the anniversary of her birthdate).    

Freedom Rides Part of Auburn High School Student Mural

Auburn High School senior Michelle Butts designed a mural recognizing the efforts of women in the Civil Rights Movement, including women involved with the 1961 Freedom Rides and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which recruited students for the Rides.  After a month of research early in 2011, Butts began designing the 8 foot by 4 foot mural, part of a volunteer service learning project celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Butts involved other students in painting the mural and shared what she had learned with them.  As she explained, “male leaders got most of the attention in the Civil Rights Movement, but there were many women involved with the Movement who should get recognition.  These included the women who organized Freedom Rides and even got on those buses.  These women show us that each of us, whether we get attention or not, help make change happen.”   The mural will be exhibited in several sites across Cayuga, Ontario, and Seneca counties.

Syracuse Cultural Workers Poster

The Syracuse Cultural Workers have created an 18" x 24" poster in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides.  One side of the poster features mugshots of the riders, while the other side contains photographs and quotes from Freedom Riders interviews conducted by author Eric Etheridge for use in his book, Breach of Peace.

The story of the 1961 Freedom Riders is a powerful example of the effectiveness of non-violent protest and the courage of committed citizens, including college students, to ensure equality for all.  In addition to WCNY’s Voices from the Back of the Bus and American Experience’s Freedom Riders, there are many resources that would be helpful to classroom teachers or to anyone who’d like to learn more about the Freedom Rides and the Civil Rights Movement. 

Websites Links

VITAL – (Of Special Interest to Teachers) 

VITAL, on Teacher’s Domain, is a free, online library of media resources for K-12 classrooms in New York State.  VITAL features over 5,000 curriculum-aligned resources – lesson plans, student activities, and videos - that can be effectively integrated into classrooms.  When in VITAL, search under Freedom Riders, the Civil Rights Movement, or explore the American Experience special collection of Freedom Riders resources.  If you haven’t registered for VITAL, just click on the link above to register and get started tapping into this terrific educational resource. 

American Experience Freedom Riders Website - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/
Visit the American Experience Freedom Riders site to download a study guide for teacher use, find additional resources including interviews with several Freedom Riders, a Freedom Rides timeline, and much more.

Blackpast.org - http://www.blackpast.org/
BlackPast.org, is an online reference center makes available a wealth of materials on African American history in one central location on the Internet. These materials include an online encyclopedia of over 1,500 entries, the complete transcript of over 125 speeches given between 1789 and 2008, over 100 full text primary documents, bibliographies, timelines and four gateway pages with links to 50 digital archive collections. Additionally 75 major African American museums and research centers and over 400 other website resources on black history are also linked to the website.

CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) Website - http://www.core-online.org/
Included on the CORE website, is a Freedom Riders page in addition to a history and overview of CORE activities.

EDSITEment - http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/kennedy-administration-and-civil-rights-movement
This site, a partnership among the National Endowment for the Humanities, Verizon Foundation, and the National Trust for the Humanities, offers resources for teachers, students, and parents searching for high-quality material on the Internet in the subject areas of literature and language arts, foreign languages, art and culture, and history and social studies.  The link above brings you to a lesson on the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, including information about the Freedom Riders.

National Park Service: Historic of the Civil Rights Movement - http://www.cr.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/
This site features a brief overview of the Civil Rights Movement, essays, and a listing of historic sites, complete with descriptions, important to the Civil Rights Movement.  You can learn and plan a travel itinerary at the same time.

PBS.ORG/Teachers - http://www.pbs.org/teachers/connect/resources/138/preview/
From the American Experience Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement – 1954-1985 – this section on the Freedom Riders includes video clips, description of the types of singing done by Freedom Riders while on the buses or in jail; press clippings; a “ride” map; and gallery of images.

The History of Jim Crow - http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/
This website, sponsored by New York Life, is for educators who are helping students to explore the African-American experience of segregation from the 1870s through the 1950s.

Freedom Riders Resource List

Compiled by Peg Elliott, Onondaga County Public Library Reference Librarian

Here is a select list of resources (with brief content descriptions) available in many public libraries or on the Internet to learn more about this significant time in American history.

Books

Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Freedom Riders
by Eric Etheridge, Roger Wilkins and Diane McWhorter
Features mug shots and personal details for more than 80 people who were arrested and convicted for challenging pre-civil rights Mississippi's segregation laws. Includes interviews with former Freedom Riders.

Carry Me Home: Birmingham Alabama - The Climatic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution
by Diane McWhorter
Documents the real story of integrating the South and telling the story of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, from the '50s through the '60s. 

Civil rights, the 1960s freedom struggle
by Rhoda Lois Blumberg
Includes chapter on the Freedom Rides and the part they played in the shaping of black resistance.

Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movement
by Ann Bausum
Presents the history of the Freedom Rides through the shared experiences of two teenagers, one black one white; summarizes their success at ending discriminatory seating on Southern interstate bus service.  Illustrated with historical photos and detailed maps. Also includes a resource guide of landmarks and a related chronology.

Freedom's Main Line : The Journey of Reconciliation and the Freedom Rides
by Dersk Catsam
Documents that the impact of the Freedom Rides was unprecedented and a significantturning point in the Civil Rights Movement. The Rides brought the reality of the violence of segregation into the national consciousness.

Freedom Riders: 1961 and The Struggle for Racial Justice
by Raymond Arsenault
A detailed account of 450 volunteers, blacks and whites, emboldened by federal rulings that declared segregated transit unconstitutional, who traveled together from Washington DC through the Deep South, defying Jim Crow laws in buses and terminals.

I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle
by Charles M Payne
Overturns familiar ideas about community activism in the 1960s bringing to life the tradition of grassroots African American activism.

Sing for Freedom: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through Its Songs
Edited by Guy and Candie Carawan
Many from this collection of African-American civil rights songs were sung on the Freedom Ride buses and in the Mississippi jails

The Civil Rights Movement: An Eyewitness History
by Sanford Wexler
Uses speeches, articles, and other writings of those involved to trace the history of the civil rights movement in the United States, primarily from 1954 to 1965.

The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954-68
by Steven Kasher
Explains the vital importance of photography to the civil rights movement and includes striking images that capture the danger, drama, and bravery of the movement.

Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s
by Henry Hampton, Steve Fayer & Sarah Flynn
Eyewitness accounts of three decades of civil rights history

Videos

Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin, produced by Independent Television Service and the National Black Programming Consortium, 2002.
A documentary examining the life of Bayard Rustin, one of the first "freedom riders," an adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and A. Philip Randolph, and an organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. However, Rustin was forced to play a background role in landmark civil rights events because he was homosexual.

Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Right’s Years. Ain’t scared of your jails 1960-1961, PBS video, 1986.
Focuses on two major events involving students in the civil rights struggle - the lunch counter sit-ins in the south (particularly Nashville, Tennessee) and the Freedom Riders trip from Washington D.C. to Mississippi. Included in the program is the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee and the importance it played in these events.  No easy walk (1961-1963) : Visits the cities where the tactics of nonviolent protest met both success and failure.

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, written and directed by Thomas Friedman ; produced by S. Leigh Savidge, 1994
Traces the career of civil rights leader Martin Luther King through the events caused by "sit-ins", "freedom riders", his numerous arrests, the presidency of John F. Kennedy, the 1963 march to Washington D.C., the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, the Voting Rights Act in 1965, until his assassination in 1968, at age 39.

To Form a More Perfect Union: Milestones of the Civil Rights Movement, U.S. Allegiance Inc, 2005
A powerful and compelling journey documenting the ten milestones of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's and 1960's emphasizing rare and unseen archival video footage of the actual events. Strong emphasis on the non-violent aspects of the Civil Rights Movement and the pivotal role played by the Supreme Court"

Online Databases / Historical Newspapers

Many libraries subscribe to the National Newspaper Archives database.  Users need to be in the library or authenticated with a library card to access digital images of articles from this database.  Here are a few citations for articles found in the Syracuse Post Standard and Herald Journal.

• Cornell Students Take Train, Syracuse Post Standard 5/31/61
• 4 Freedom Riders Quit to Escape Prison Terms, Syracuse Post Standard 7/13/1961
• Selma Negroes Coming to Syracuse, Syracuse Post Standard 4/30/1965
• From Selma to Support CORE Rally Against Niagara Mohawk, Syracuse Post Standard 5/6/1965
• “Selma Riders on Way Home”, Syracuse Post Standard 5/19/1965
• They Stood Firm Against Angry Racist Mob, Syracuse Herald Journal, 1/16/1989
• A Witness to History: Student Senator Revisit Civil Rights Trip Through South, Syracuse Post Standard 2/17/2001

The Fulton History Project newspaper database is available for free searching.  This site provides access to articles from many Central New York local newspapers.  Here is a sampling of articles related to the Freedom Rides.

• NAACP Head Not Opposed to ‘Freedom Ride’ System, Evening Recorder, Amsterdam, NY  6/15/1961
• Freedom Riders Plan to Seek Lift of Ban, Observer Dispatch, Utica, NY 6/4/1961,
• Integration Bus Riders Score Bias, Gazette, Niagara Falls, NY 5/16/1961,
• Campaigns Might Open Schools, Polls to Negroes Freedom Rider Says Here
• Evening Press, Binghamton, NY 9/28/1961
• Freedom Rides, Citizen Advisor, Auburn, NY 6/1/1961
• Terror Stalks Freedom Riders in the South, Herald Statesman, Yonkers, NY 1/20/1972

Additional Websites

Interview with Stanley Nelson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T50Ym94k8Y - This is an interview with the American Experience documentary’s director.

Library of Congress American Memory Project
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart9b.html#09c - Information on the Civil Rights Era including sit-ins, Freedom Rides and demonstrations.

National Public Radio: Get On the Bus: The Freedom Riders of 1961, 2006
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5149667 - A look at Raymond Arsenault’s book, Freedom Riders.

Brown v. Board of Education
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/brown/1961.html
This website is a companion to Professor Jack M. Balkin’s book, What Brown v. Board of Education Should Have Said (NYU Press 2001).  It is a chronology of important events in the struggle for civil rights for African-Amercians from 1502, when the first African slaves were brought to the New World, to the 2000.

Central NY Historical Societies

If you’d like to explore connections to the Freedom Riders and the Civil Rights Movement in your own community, your local historical society can be a good place to start. 

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery Street
Syracuse, NY. 13202
315-428-1864

Cayuga-Owasco Lake Historical Society
14 West Cayuga Street
P.O. Box 247
Moravia, NY 13118-0247
315-497-3906

Cortland County Historical Society
25 Homer Avenue
Cortland, New York 13045
607-756-6071

Oneida County Historical Society
1608 Genesee Street
Utica, New York 13502
315-735-3642

The History Center in Tompkins County
401 E. State/MLK Jr. Street
Ithaca, NY 14850
607-273-8284

Oswego Town Historical Society
2320 County Route 7
Oswego, NY 13126
315- 343-2586