ROCK SPRINGS – On Tuesday, April 8, Western Wyoming Community College and the Hay Library will present the award-winning documentary feature “Freedom Riders” at 7 p.m. in Room 1302 at the Rock Springs campus. This will be the last of five films to be shown at Western this academic year as part of the “Created Equal” film series, and it is free and open to the public.
On Tuesday, April 15, also at 7 p.m., Assistant Professor of History and Political Science Jessica Clark, Ph.D., will host a follow-up discussion about the film, which tells the story of the young people, black and white, who boarded buses and traveled to Southern towns in order to openly defy segregation laws in the early 1960s. Both the April 8 screening and the April 15 discussion will be held in Room 1302. The discussion will include clips from the film.
The acclaimed film “Freedom Riders,” from Firelight Media and director Stanley Nelson, explores in fascinating and heartbreaking detail the intimidation, physical violence and imprisonment the young activists experienced at the hands of Southern citizens and authorities, and how this response only strengthened the Freedom Riders’ resolve to expose to the world, through non-violent activism, the injustice of Southern segregation. Their courageous actions awakened the nation to the evils of a deliberately harsh and unequal social system.
Previously screened films in the series included “The Abolitionists,” “Slavery by Another Name,” “Rescue Men: The Story of the Pea Island Life Savers,” and “The Loving Story.”
Western Wyoming Community College and the Hay Library are pleased to present this free film discussion series in collaboration with the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and Bridging Cultures.
