Would You Get On the Bus?

May 16, 2011 Erik Ernst Leave a Comment

Watch Freedom Riders: American Experience at 8 p.m. Monday, May 16 on Wisconsin Public Television.

Fifty years ago, a group of college students bought bus tickets for a journey into the  deep south. The journey of this group of brave people who came from different racial backgrounds would be fraught with violence as they pressed their way into the fiercely segregated regions of the United States. But, these Freedom Riders sought a larger outcome than their individual circumstances or hardships. Their goal was to awaken the country — all the way up to the President — to the social injustice that was faced everyday by people across the south just because of the color of their skin.

Filmmaker Stanley Nelson tells the story of the Freedom Riders in this powerful documentary, which is filled with emotional first-person accounts and archival film footage.

American Experience producer Mark Samels talked about the making of Freedom Riders and the award-winning work of the documentary film series that he helms in an exclusive WPT interview below.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw0dcAqR9Nw]

interview youtube History Documentary American Experience Film Mark Samels public television Wisconsin Public Television Wisconsin Public Television Program