Now that the idea of a “community organizer” has been painted as a pejorative, the thought of civil-rights workers risking their lives to organize beyond their home communities must seem exotic.
The 450 “Freedom Riders” who made the bus trip from Washington, D.C., through the Deep South in 1961 actually had non-exotic goals: the right to eat at a lunch counter, drink from a water fountain, use a public restroom or take a seat on a bus.
The civil-rights activists were seen as outside agitators by those who felt their way of life was threatened. In truth, they were walking a fine line: “nonviolent but courting violence,” Julian Bond sums up in the film “Freedom Riders,” premiering Monday on PBS.
Theirs was either a nonviolent protest by integrated groups — black and white, Northern and Southern — in the fashion of Gandhi; or it was a deliberate provocation, daring Southerners to defy federal law and bring on a national crisis.
They were naive in their pursuit, and thank goodness. As the survivors share minute-by- minute memories in “Freedom Riders,” it’s clear that, despite the training sessions, they didn’t know what to expect.
The now-senior participants speak on camera, juxtaposed with clips from 50 years ago. Their younger selves were blissfully unaware of how bad the violence might get. The images of firehoses, police dogs, a burning bus and bloodshed, which now stand as ingrained cultural memories, were still to come.
The struggle for justice that had folks trekking south via Trailways and Greyhound may be ancient history to today’s TV viewers, but the 50th anniversary is a good time to revisit a journey that was both heroic and plain lucky.
“Freedom Riders” airs Monday under the “American Experience” banner, locally 8-10 p.m. on Rocky Mountain PBS.
Although there are too many shots of buses on the long, lonesome byways, the key visuals still have the power to shock. Great — and sickening — vintage black-and- white footage, fraught with racist opinions and uses of what we now call “the n- word,” illustrate the unrepentant attitudes of white supremacists at the time.
Behind white-only lunch counters, self-assured Southerners appear in old TV interviews explaining the tradition.
A now-ridiculous Eisenhower-era TV commercial depicts a busload of happily singing white travelers, “rolling along the old highway,” unaware of the shifting social and cultural mores of the time.
“We were blind to the reality of racism and afraid, I guess, of change,” says John Siegenthaler, journalist and proud Southerner, born in Nashville, one of the film’s many eyewitnesses to the era.
In his book “Freedom Riders,” author Raymond Arsenault sets up the events of 1961 as the pivot point between the Brown vs. Board of Education decision in 1954 and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. He appears on camera as well, and what might have been a sterile history lesson comes vividly to life, imparting the emotion of the civil-rights movement to a new TV audience.
“Castle” season finale.
Perhaps the greatest mystery in ABC’s “Castle,” a formulaic “Murder, He Wrote,” is the show’s popularity.
It’s simple: This is an appealing series for those who find the “CSI” and “Law & Order” franchises too dark or challenging. Monday’s season finale, at 9 p.m. on KMGH-Channel 7, promises to uncover a deep conspiracy.
Which leaves another mystery: What will ABC do with “Castle” going forward?
Fox just showed no mercy for its five “bubble” shows, picking up “House” for what likely will be its last season, but dumping “Breaking In,” “The Chicago Code,” “Lie to Me,” “Human Target” and “Traffic Light.”
Will ABC be kinder to “Castle”? We’ll know next week.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
