In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and other civil rights groups began organizing the Freedom Rides. The Freedom Riders were volunteers of different backgrounds who travelled on buses throughout the American South to help enforce the Supreme Court ruling that had declared racial segregation on public transportation illegal. In Freedom's Main Line: The Journey of Reconciliation and the Freedom Rides, Derek Catsam shows how the Freedom Rides were crucial in raising awareness among decision makers and in bringing the realities of racial segregation into American homes through national media coverage.

Derek Charles Catsam is associate professor of history at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. His previous publications include numerous reviews and articles. He lives in Odessa, TX.

Reviews:

"Meticulously researched and gracefully written, this book is a remarkable achievement and is destined to become an important study of the black freedom struggle."--Robert A. Pratt, author of We Shall Not Be Moved: The Desegregation of the University of Georgia

"Freedom's Main Line is based on research in a wide variety of archives and newspapers, and it reflects a solid grasp of the historiography of the era. [The book] is a well-written account of an important aspect of the struggle for racial equality in the United States."-Brian J. Daugherity, Virginia Magazine of History and Biography

"Besides being impeccably researched and offering its readers a gripping tale, this multilayered interpretation lifts Catsam's work a cut above most civil rights narratives, all without sacrificing the rich stories of individual participants."-American Historical Review

"Freedom's Main Line is a compelling, spellbinding examination of a pivotal event in civil rights history, and it should appeal to both a lay and professional audience.... By layering the flesh of human interest over well-formed scholarly bones, Catsam has created a highly readable and dramatic account of a major turning point not just in the Civil Rights Movement, but in recent U.S. history."-John H. Barnhill, Journal of African-American History