In May 1961 a multiracial group of civil rights activists known as Freedom Riders prepared to enter North Carolina on intercity buses to ensure the desegregation of them and related transit facilities in the South. Sanford sought the advice of Thomas J. Pearsall, an attorney who had previously developed North Carolina's response to federally mandated school desegregation. Pearsall counselled Sanford to "approach the matter quietly, informally and without public notice" and be prepared to deploy the State Highway Patrol to "meet mob violence." Under Sanford's orders, the Highway Patrol monitored the buses' movements and guarded against potential violence from angry segregationist whites. Throughout his tenure Sanford would deploy state police at civil rights demonstrations to maintain order and deter violence, but he never used them to disperse demonstrators. He later said, "It was up to us to keep the order and let them demonstrate, which was constitutional. It was unthinkable to put them in jail for that." He also expressed support for President Kennedy's actions to maintain order during the integration of the University of Mississippi. Sanford remained conscious of the desires of the white constituency which had elected him, and in one instance wrote federal officials to request that a group of white North Carolinian army reservists be reassigned from the predominantly black army unit to which they were posted. Sanford let the matter drop after the United States Department of Defense refused to honor his request. Journalists often wrote about Sanford's actions regarding racial issues and dubbed him a leading moderate. He enjoyed the media attention, but shied away from being portrayed as party to a conflict with the South's more hard-line segregationist governors.