were not permitted to wait in those areas despite the 
Supreme Court making it the law of the land. 
(3) The Freedom Riders, with the intent to end 
segregation in public transportation throughout the 
South, paved the way for full racial integration of 
the United States transit system. They overcame 
prejudice, discrimination, and violence. They sparked 
a movement that changed our Nation. 
(4) The Congress of Racial Equality (C.O.R.E.) 
selected thirteen volunteers for nonviolent response 
training to join in the Freedom Rides from Wash-
ington, DC, to New Orleans, LA. The Freedom Rid-
ers used their strategies of nonviolence throughout 
the South to challenge the region’s Jim Crow laws 
directly and enforce the Supreme Court decision in 
Boynton. 
(5) On the morning of May 4, 1961, the Free-
dom Riders, comprised of seven Blacks and six 
Whites, boarded two buses, with Blacks and Whites 
seated together. Those thirteen Freedom Riders 
were: Genevieve Hughes Houghton, Charles Person, 
Hank Thomas, John Lewis, Edward Blankenheim, 
James Farmer, Walter Bergman, Frances Bergman, 
Joseph Perkins, Jimmy McDonald, Mae Francis 
Moultrie, Benjamin Elton Cox, and Albert Bigelow. 
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Most segregated States considered even this level of 
integration a crime. At various stops along the way, 
the Freedom Riders would enter areas designated 
‘‘Whites’’ and ‘‘Colored’’ and would eat together at 
segregated lunch counters to defy local laws. 
(6) Initially, the Freedom Riders had encoun-
tered only minor clashes until a stop in South Caro-
lina. In Rock Hill, an angry mob severely beat John 
Lewis, now a Congressman from the 5th District of 
Georgia, when he entered the bus station. Henry 
‘‘Hank’’ Thomas was jailed when he entered the bus 
station in Winnsboro. Authorities delivered him to a 
waiting mob long after the station had closed that 
evening. A local Black minister rescued Thomas, en-
abling him to rejoin the group in Columbia. How-
ever, Lewis was so badly beaten he could not con-
tinue the Freedom Rides. 
(7) Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and other civil 
rights leaders met with the group in Atlanta to dis-
suade their continuance through the Deep South due 
to death threats. Despite these warnings, more Free-
dom Riders joined in Atlanta. Dedicated to their 
mission to end segregation in the South and trained 
in nonviolent movements, the Freedom Riders con-
tinued on their journey. 
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(8) On Mother’s Day, May 14, 1961, the Free-
dom Riders were on two different buses. An angry 
mob in Anniston, Alabama, firebombed the first bus. 
When the Freedom Riders rushed out, still choking 
from the thick smoke of the burning bus, the wait-
ing angry mob beat them with lead pipes and base-
ball bats as the bus exploded. Ambulances refused to 
transport the Black Freedom Riders to the hospital. 
The mob beat the Freedom Riders on the second bus 
and forced them to sit in the back. As they jour-
neyed to Birmingham, another mob savagely beat 
the Freedom Riders. 
(9) The Nashville (TN) Student Group, a local 
group of students who had been successful in deseg-
regating the lunch counters and movie theaters in 
Nashville (TN), vowed not to let these acts of vio-
lence curtail the goal of the Freedom Rides. They 
sent their members to continue the Freedom Rides 
and called out to other student groups to do the 
same. 
(10) As the violence grew, the Attorney General 
of the United States called in the National Guard 
and the U.S. Marshals to protect the Freedom Rid-
ers as they journeyed through Alabama. This protec-
tion was short-lived. The Federal authorities turned 
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the Freedom Riders over to the local authorities in 
Mississippi who then arrested the Freedom Riders 
for disturbing the peace. 
(11) The government of Mississippi imprisoned 
many of the Freedom Riders in Parchman Prison 
known for its horrific conditions, such as subjecting 
the Freedom Riders to strip searches, work on chain 
gangs, and light shining in their cells 24 hours a 
day. Despite these conditions, the Freedom Riders 
refused bail because they were determined to spread 
the message of their nonviolent movement. 
(12) Five months after the first Freedom Rides 
left on their historic ride, the Interstate Commerce 
Commission in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney 
General Robert Kennedy issued a Federal order ban-
ning segregation at all interstate public facilities 
based upon ‘‘race, color or creed’’. The law became 
effective on November 1, 1961. 
(13) In 2011, the President of the United 
States paid tribute to the Freedom Riders with a 
Presidential proclamation honoring the 50th anni-
versary of the first Freedom Ride by brave Ameri-
cans whose selfless act of courage helped pave the 
way for others to continue on the road to Civil 
Rights in America. 
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SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL. 
(a) PRESENTATION AUTHORIZATION.—The Speaker 
of the House of Representatives and the President pro 
tempore of the Senate shall make appropriate arrange-
ments for the presentation, on behalf of the Congress, of 
a gold medal of appropriate design to the Freedom Riders, 
collectively, in recognition of their unique contribution to 
Civil Rights, which inspired a revolutionary movement to 
equality in interstate travel. 
(b) DESIGN AND STRIKING.—For the purposes of the 
award referred to in subsection (a), the Secretary of the 
Treasury (hereafter in this Act referred to as the ‘‘Sec-
retary’’) shall strike a gold medal with suitable emblems, 
devices, and inscriptions, to be determined by the Sec-
retary. 
(c) SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.— 
(1) IN GENERAL.—Following the award of the 
gold medal under subsection (a), the gold medal 
shall be given to the Smithsonian Institution, where 
it will be available for display as appropriate and 
available for research. 
(2) SENSE OF THE CONGRESS.—It is the sense 
of the Congress that the Smithsonian Institution 
should make the gold medal awarded pursuant to 
this Act available for display elsewhere, particularly 
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at appropriate locations associated with the Freedom 
Riders. 
SEC. 3. DUPLICATE MEDALS. 
The Secretary may strike and sell duplicates in 
bronze of the gold medal struck pursuant to section 2 
under such regulations as the Secretary may prescribe, at 
a price sufficient to cover the cost thereof, including labor, 
materials, dies, use of machinery, and overhead expenses, 
and the cost of the gold medal. 
SEC. 4. NATIONAL MEDALS. 
Medals struck pursuant to this Act are national med-
als for the purposes of chapter 51 of title 31, United 
States Code. 
Æ 
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