I t’s mid-spring, 1961. In the kitchen of a safe house in Montgomery, Ala., Martin Luther King Jr. is tense. In the house with the 32-year-old civil rights leader are 17 students — fresh-faced ...

See more photos of the Freedom Riders as well as related LIFE galleries on Martin Luther King's involvement with the Riders, the day he died, and the women of the civil rights movement at LIFE.com.

Photos From 'Life' On The Freedom Riders' 50th Anniversary : The Picture Show Today marks the 50th anniversary of the first "Freedom Ride" — a test of anti-discrimination laws in the south.

On Mother's Day in 1961, a Greyhound bus carrying Freedom Riders was ambushed in Anniston, Alabama. The image of the Greyhound bus in flames was an image printed in papers across the United States ...

A collection of photographs from the 1961 firebombing of a Freedom Riders bus is on display at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, marking Black History Month.

President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office with his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Credit: Art Rickerby/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images Although John F. Kennedy reached out to ...

On May 4, 1961, national CORE launched “Freedom Rides” on a Trailways and Greyhound bus to test segregation on interstate buses and inside terminals after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed such ...

The Freedom Riders History. In the spring of 1961, black and white civil rights activists rode buses to protest the segregationist policies of the Deep South (Marian Holmes, Brian Wolly, Photos ...