freedom rides

Noun

freedom ride (plural freedom rides)

1. (US, historical) In the United States in the 1960s (chiefly 1961), any one of a number of trips taken by bus or other forms of transport through parts of the southern U.S., made by groups of civil rights activists demonstrating their opposition to racial prejudice and segregation.
   • It is a slight miracle, I think, that in the almost two years since February of 1960 there has not been a fatality. But we have come amazingly close to it several times. Let me mention the case of William Barbee who was on the Freedom Ride when it arrived at Montgomery and met with mob violence.[…]1961, Diane Nash, “Inside the Sit-ins and Freedom Rides: Testimony of a Southern Student”, in Mathew H. Ahmann, editor, The New Negro, New York, N.Y.: Biblo and Tannen, published 1969, →OCLC, page 58
2. (Australia, broadly, historical) A similar excursion undertaken by protesters in Australia in 1965 in opposition to unfair discrimination against Indigenous Australians.
   • The year of the first Aboriginal freedom ride is the year the principal of Fineflour Central boards up a group of kids in the toilet block roof.1990, Gillian Mears, “Fineflour”, in Fineflour, St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press, published 1997, →ISBN, page 25