What they encountered along the way showed just how prevalent segregation and injustice existed in Australia. The trip would prove to be a turning point in the Australian civil rights movement.

The segregation and disenfranchisement laws ... was humiliating," recalled Diane Nash in her interview for Freedom Riders. "The very fact that there were separate facilities was to say to ...

However, over time these legal challenges provided the framework for overturning the apparatus of segregation ... of Reconciliation and the 1961 Freedom Rides, activists could proclaim that ...

The Freedom Rides began on May 4, 1961, and continued throughout the year. They eventually included hundreds of young activists who targeted bus segregation, which recent Supreme Court decisions ...