Fifty years ago, on May 4, 1961, the first bus of the Freedom Rides left Washington D.C. headed to New Orleans, with people committed to challenging segregation. The Freedom Rides were one of the sparks that contributed to a movement to dismantle a degrading system that violated human rights.
In an interview with organizers from The U.S. Boat to Gaza, Alice Walker, one of our nation’s foremost contemporary writers and the first African-American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize, likened the planned Freedom Flotilla II to Gaza to the Freedom Rides by saying ”this is the Freedom Ride of this era.” In the U.S. the racist system of segregation was challenged; in South Africa the racist system of apartheid was challenged; in Palestine the racist system of occupation and apartheid, enforced by the Israeli government and supported by the U.S government, is being challenged and will come to an end.
The sixty people from the U.S. on THE AUDACITY OF HOPE – our boat from the U.S. – are sailing with the international Freedom Flotilla II to demand an end to the illegal Israeli naval blockade of Gaza. We are sailing to support the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice.
Please share this message widely.
| ALICE WALKER_FREEDOM RIDE |