Join WGBY and our partners this week as we present two advance screenings of the new American Experience Film, Freedom Riders scheduled for broadcast in May 2011.

March 3, 2011: UMass Amherst, 7:00pm, Bartlett Hall 65

Screening followed by a conversation facilitated by Dr. Mike Thelwell, UMass Professor Emeritus and local Freedom Riders, James Breeden, Jean D. Thompson, Albert Gordon and Judy Frieze Wright

March 4, 2011, MCLA, 3:00pm, Murdock Hall, Sammer Room 218

Screening followed by a conversation facilitated by Dr. Frances Jones-Snead, Professor of History, with local Freedom Riders, Albert Gordon, Jean D. Thompson and Judy Frieze Wright

About the Film: Freedom Riders is the powerful harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives—and many endured savage beatings and imprisonment—for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South. Deliberately violating Jim Crow laws, the Freedom Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along the way, sorely testing their belief in nonviolent activism.