IN-PERSON – Marshak Science Center Room 2
Join us in Marshak Science Center Room 2 for a conversation with Freedom Rider Lew Zuchman. Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of Supreme Court rulings which held that segregated public buses were unconstitutional.
**Everyone who attends in-person must be ready to display evidence of full vaccination. See Covid Guidelines below.
COVID-19 GUIDELINES
All attendees must be vaccinated, and masks are required. For guests (non-CUNY, non-CCNY attendees), here is the Cleared4 link for registering and submitting vaccination credential. This needs to be done at least 3 days in advance of the event. ((bit.ly/Health-Verification-GUEST))
Lew Zuchman
The Freedom Riders, as they became known, were often met with fury by Southern whites. There were numerous incidents of mob violence in Alabama and Mississippi, often aided by local police forces. Even if they were lucky enough to avoid a beating, many activists spent weeks in prison.
Zuchman remembers that hatred vividly, following his arrest in Jackson, Mississippi.
“I remember I was shackled, walking along with other prisoners, and the judge, who had sentenced me, saw me and spat on me. The judge!” Zuchman said. “So you began to realize how frightening it was down there. This was not any America that we thought of.”
He spent 40 days at the notorious Parchman State Penitentiary in Mississippi.
Zuchman had been inspired to join the movement by Jackie Robinson, the first Black man to play Major League Baseball. He saw Robinson on TV discussing the Freedom Rides and whether the campaign should end because of the violence.
Zuchman still works to improve the lives of communities of color, as the executive director of Scan Harbor, a non-profit that supports disadvantaged children in New York.
