Ten new bi-racial "Freedom Riders" who were arrested yesterday in Montgomery, Ala….
Press Release
May 26, 1961

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Press Releases, Loose Pages. Ten new bi-racial "Freedom Riders" who were arrested yesterday in Montgomery, Ala…., 1961. 96b3fedb-bc92-ee11-be37-00224827e97b. LDF Archives, Thurgood Marshall Institute. https://ldfrecollection.org/archives/archives-search/archives-item/67046ccd-682a-493a-b789-e671bde94174/ten-new-bi-racial-freedom-riders-who-were-arrested-yesterday-in-montgomery-ala. Accessed July 30, 2025.
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PRESS RELEASE® r) NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND 10 COLUMBUS CIRCLE » NEW YORK 19,N.Y. © JUdson 6-8397 DR. ALLAN KNIGHT CHALMERS oe THURGOOD MARSHALL President Director-Counsel May 26, 1961 NEW YORK, -- Ten new bi-racial "Freedom Riders" who were arrested yesterday in Montgomery, Ala., moved today to intervene in a pending federal suit which challenges Alabama's segregation of buses, bus terminals, and terminal facilities. The new group was arrested for attempting to use Montgomery bus terminal lunch counters on a desegregated basis, and they are cur- rently being held under $1,000 bond each. The 10 plaintiffs include@ Negro leaders Ralph D. Abernathy and Fred M. Shuttlesworth, students Wyatt T. Walker and Bernard S. Lee of Atlanta, Ga., two Yale University professors, two Wesleyan University professors, and three students, two from Johnson C. Smith University and one from Yale. The pending suit was filed last night in behalf of "Freedom Riders" who were victimized in Saturday's rioting in Montgomery. It asked the federal district court to dissolve a state court injunction against the "Freedom Riders," and to uphold desegregation in bus transportation and terminal facilities, The suit was filed in the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, Northern Division, in Montgomery by NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund attorneys. The Justice Department also entered the case as a "friend of the court." The court was asked to prohibit interstate and intrastate bus companies and Alabama officials from (a) segregating passengers on the basis of race; (b) segregating terminal facilities and services; (c) enforcing segregation by use of racial signs, and "arresting, harassing, intimidating and threatening" Negro citizens who seek to use such facilities on a desegregated basis. A June, 1956 decision desegregating all Montgomery buses and facilities, issued by the Federal District Court in which the May 25, 1961 action was filed, was cited in support of the requested court order. The court was also asked to enjoin Attorney General MacDonald Gallion of Alabama from proceeding with contempt actions against the "Ereedom Riders." The state court injunction, entered May 19, 1961, charged that the "Freedom Riders" were "performing acts calculated to cause breaches of the peace." The NAACP Legal Defense Fund complaint states that the Alabama injunction "controverts" the 1956 desegregation order of the federal court and "would enforce" segregation of buses and bus terminals. A hearing in the state court had been scheduled for May 26, 1961, but no warrants as yet have been served on any of the twenty "Freedom Riders" cited in the injunction. Several of the "Freedom Riders" named in the state court injunc- tion left Montgomery on Wednesday's trip through Mississippi, and are presently jailed in Jackson, Miss. Defendants cited are Alabama Attorney General MacDonald Gallion; Montgomery County Sheriff Mac Sim Butler; William F. Thetford, Cir- cuit Solicitor for the 15th Judicial Circuit; Alabama Public Service Commissioners C. C. Owen, J. S. Foster and Sibyl Pool; Montgomery Police Chief Goodwin J. Ruppenthal; Montgomery City Commissioners Earl James, L. B. Sullivan and Frank Parks; the Southeastern Grey- hound Lines, a Division of Greyhound Corp., Capital Motor Lines, Inc., Continental Cresent Lines, Inc., and Gulf Transport Company, Inc. NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys representing the "Freedom Riders" are Thurgood Marshall, Jack Greenberg and Constance Baker Motley, all of New York City; S. S. Seay and Fred Gray of Montgomery, Ala. 630: =