On this date in 1961, a White mob attacked Freedom Riders with chains and ax handles in Montgomery, AL.
Because of the local officers' ineffectiveness, federal marshals had to be eventually dispatched by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. The Ku Klux Klan hoped that this violent treatment would stop other young people from taking part in freedom rides.
Instead, over the next six months, over a thousand people took part in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) freedom rides of 1961.
