(especially in the 1960s) a bus trip made to parts of the southern U.S. by persons engaging in efforts to integrate racially segregated public facilities.
A group of northern idealists active in the civil rights movement. The Freedom Riders, who included both blacks and whites, rode buses into the South in the early 1960s in order to challenge racial segregation. Freedom Riders were regularly attacked by mobs of angry whites and received often belated protection from federal officers.
