In 1962, the Greater Citizens’ Council of New Orleans launched a cruel campaign designed to retaliate against the Freedom Rides and Northern activists. They recruited poor Black Southerners with false promises of jobs and housing, and put them on buses bound for Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, cities that were wholly unprepared to receive them. The campaign became known as the “Reverse Freedom Rides.”

Norman funded the National Urban League to convene a statewide conference in Louisiana to educate Southern community leaders about the conditions the riders would encounter in the Northern cities where they were being sent, so that they could be better informed and warned before uprooting their families.

Media:

• PBS Great Migrations: The Reverse Freedom Rides – a Cruel Twist on the Great Migration