Charles Person was a civil rights activist best known as the youngest of the original Freedom Riders, a group of activists who challenged illegal, unconstitutional racial segregation that was rampant throughout the American South.
- Died: January 8, 2025 (Who else died on January 8?)
- Details of death: Died in Fayetteville, Georgia of leukemia at the age of 82.
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Charles Person’s legacy
Charles Person was just 18 years old when he put his life on the line doing something most Americans take for granted: getting on a bus to travel from one place to another, using facilities such as bathrooms and restaurants along the way. That simple act attracted violent mobs that beat him and others, firebombed a bus, and engaged in other acts of terrorism.
Born and raised in Atlanta, Person was a self-described good kid who believed in living a good life and following the rules – unless those rules forced him to live as a second-class citizen in his own country. While he was attending Morehouse College, the Congress of Racial Equality chose Person to be among those to take part in the May 1961 Freedom Rides, organized thanks to widespread disregard for two landmark court cases, Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which made segregated public busing illegal, including its accompanying amenities such as waiting rooms and restaurants serving the lines. Despite these rulings, segregation continued.
To bring attention to the issue, Person and a group of fellow riders representing a wide range of ethnic backgrounds engaged in a simple act: they rode the bus from state-to-state, riding in silence, just like any other passenger.
Violence and chaos ensued.
At one stop, the KKK boarded to threaten the riders. In Anniston, Alabama, where a firebomb was used to torch a Freedom Ride bus earlier, more thugs confronted them, this time physically attacking Person and others, and dragging him to the rear of the bus in which he rode. When the bus driver brought police to the scene, officers did not intervene. At a later stop, in Birmingham, a pipe-wielding mob was waiting. The local police chief, white supremacist Bull Conner, refused to send assistance, and Person was among those assaulted while attempting to sit at a whites-only counter for lunch. The situation was bad enough that the ride was abandoned there, with the riders flying the rest of the way to their destination in New Orleans. Even then, the flight was held up due to bomb threats.
But by then, the Freedom Riders’ message was felt by the rest of the nation. By the month’s end, President John F. Kennedy’s administration had ordered that all interstate bus terminals be desegregated. Four months later, segregation in America’s public transportation system was ended by the federal Interstate Commerce Commission.
Person tells much of his story in his 2021 memoir, “Buses Are a Comin’: Memoir of a Freedom Rider.” He also continued his work in civil rights that year by co-founding the Freedom Riders Training Academy, which is designed to teach people about civil rights and how to engage in nonviolent protest.
Notable quote
“Either because of my youth, or stupidity or whatever, I had no fear. Even when we were being beaten, I had no pain … We didn’t communicate or talk when we were together on the bus. We were just passengers. We just wanted to give people the impression that we were just ordinary folks doing ordinary things.” — interview with NBC News, 2021
Tributes to Charles Person
Full obituary: The New York Times
