Freedom Riders experience joyous, triumphant reunion

Tennessean.com
By MICHAEL CASS and JENNIFER BROOKS
September 19, 2008

TSU gave honorary degrees Thursday to 14 Freedom Riders, former students who put their lives on the line in 1961 to protest racial segregation and paid the price when they were thrown in jail and expelled from school.
It was a joyous day for the 10 living Freedom Riders and the family members representing the deceased.
"I grew up on this campus," said Pauline Knight-Ofosu, an honorary degree recipient. "I grew up with an appreciation of the arts. ... At the time that I grew up, this might have been one of the few places that we could go and we could appreciate the arts and not be in a segregated area.
"All of this is just so fantastic. I don't know how I can stand it," she said.
When the ceremony was over, the reunion complete, they swayed to Tennessee State University's alma mater.
"Alma Mater, how we love thee, love thy white and blue," the former students sang of the university that once exiled them for their acts of courage and sacrifice.
The Freedom Riders rode buses through the volatile heart of the Jim Crow South to protest segregation in interstate transportation. A few months later, their actions caused President John F. Kennedy's administration to enforce earlier Supreme Court rulings banning segregation along America's bus and train lines.
TSU President Melvin Johnson said the students' "extraordinary achievements" were worthy of the belated recognition, which the Tennessee Board of Regents initially refused to grant.
"These degrees serve to remind this generation of a time when young people were willing to risk their reputations, careers, freedom and lives for a higher cause," said Johnson, who lobbied for the awards.
The Board of Regents, which oversees TSU, bowed to widespread criticism and reversed itself a few weeks after its initial decision last spring. Kwame Leo Lillard, a TSU graduate and former Metro councilman who helped organize fellow students' participation in the Freedom Rides, gave the board credit for coming around. [To read the entire story, go to: http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080919/NEWS01/809190409 ]