Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movement

by Ann Bausum

Book Overview

Freedom Riders compares and contrasts the childhoods of John Lewis and James Zwerg in a way that helps young readers understand the segregated experience of our nation''s past. It shows how a common... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0792241738
• Release Date: December 2005
• Publisher: National Geographic Kids
• Length: 80 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 11.2" x 0.5" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Good book

Very good book lots of shocking pictures. Finally a book that is talking about Jim Zwerg who fought and risked his life for another race and benefited from it NOTHING. Great man!!! Highly reccomended.

Richie's Picks: FREEDOM RIDERS

FREEDOM RIDERS: JOHN LEWIS AND JIM ZWERG ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT by Ann Bausum, National Geographic, January 2006 "Why did I participate in the Freedom Rides? The answer is simple. It was the right thing to do." --Jim Zwerg "What's that I hear now ringing in my ears I've heard that sound before What's that I hear now ringing in my ears I hear it more and more It's the sound of freedom calling Ringing up to the sky It's the sound of the old ways a-falling You can hear it if you try You can hear it if you try" --Phil Ochs During the spring of 1961, Jim Zwerg boarded a train for Nashville, Tennessee where he was signed up to participate in an exchange program at Fisk University. He would end up meeting John Lewis and getting involved in the Nashville Student Movement. That May, ignoring his mother's pleas not to do so, Zwerg would join a group of brave young people and take a bus ride to end segregation. That bus ride nearly cost Jim Zwerg his life when he and the other so-called Freedom Riders were set upon by a mob of hundreds that had been lying in wait for their arrival at the Montgomery, Alabama Greyhound station: "Mob members threw him over a railing, knocked him to the ground, kicked him in the back, and stepped on his face. Zwerg blacked out, oblivious to the continued assault. Attackers pulled him into a headlock and punched his face. Women pounded him with their handbags. When he slumped to the ground, people kicked him in the groin, ribs, and face, then hauled him up to repeat the cycle." Hours later Zwerg was filmed for the national evening news lying in his hospital bed. In a statement to the cameras that he wouldn't remember giving, due to his injuries that included a concussion, he insisted: " 'Segregation must be stopped. It must be broken down. We're going on to New Orleans no matter what. We're dedicated to this. We'll take hitting. We'll take beating. "We're willing to accept death.' " Zwerg's determination caused many people to drop what they were doing and join the Movement. With my having written several years ago about Christine Hill's book, JOHN LEWIS: FROM FREEDOM RIDER TO CONGRESSMAN, I already knew much about John Lewis, the black kid who grew up picking cotton and preaching to his family's farmyard animals in the segregated South. John Lewis, who I am excited to periodically catch a glimpse of on TV doing his work as a member of the US House of Representatives, was sitting next to Jim Zwerg on that bus heading into Montgomery. But I knew nothing of Zwerg, the white kid from Wisconsin who grew up -- as I did -- so utterly removed from people of color and from the horrible daily indignities that Lewis and millions of others regularly faced. At the time that John Lewis, Jim Zwerg and so many others were riding that bus and risking their lives, the Civil Rights Movement was, for me, something scary and confusing on the evening news. "Teach your children well" --Graham Nash

compelling history

This book chronicles in vivid detail the Freedom Rides of 1961, a critical event in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Bausum tells the story from the perspective of two Freedom Riders, John Lewis and Jim Zwerg, who together with other young people, boarded a Greyhound bus to test Southern compliance with federal rules about integration of bus stations and interstate travel. The backgrounds of the two men couldn't have been more different: Lewis was black and grew up poor in the segregated South; Zwerg was white, and had a typical middle class childhood of the time. The two young men did have an interesting thing in common--both preached their first sermons as teenagers. Bausum takes an historical event that normally might receive one or two lines in a textbook and fleshes out the story with compelling detail. According to her introduction, she traveled 4,000 miles, and interviewed countless people to bring this story to life. We learn about the incredible courage of the Freedom Riders, who faced hostile and violent mobs, but who didn't back down. At the end of the book, Bausum has a brief biography of several of the Freedom Riders. Many of then did well in life, but I was surprised to learn many of them were permanently scarred both physically and emotionally by their participation in the Civil Rights movement. I think it's important that we remember their stories and the sacrifices that they made. This book would be an excellent starting point for young adults learning about this important part of our history.