The movement toward equality continues as oppressed African-Americans and sympathetic whites now having broken down segregation on both city buses and in public schools now turn their attention toward lunch counters. Students, schooled in non-violence, stage sit-ins at segregated lunch counters not only face violent mobs but have to engineer a plan to work around police procedure in order to keep the protests going. Meanwhile, groups of young people engineer a plan to ride interstate buses into the deep south to educated poor blacks in their rights and to make sure that they are being treated fairly. The arrival of the Freedom Riders is met by violent mobs sanctioned by local officials and law enforcement. As the violence continues, President Kennedy himself at odds with local politicians who are dead-set on not protecting the riders who are being brutalized.
—Jerry Roberts <armchairoscars@hotmail.com>