Orange County apologizes to 1st Freedom Riders who challenged Jim Crow South
Two days before the country celebrates 157 years since the end of enslavement, an Orange County court corrected a 75-year-old injustice.
Four of the 16 men who participated in the “Journey of Reconciliation,” the precursor to Freedom Rides that protested segregation on buses, were posthumously exonerated for convictions they received in a Hillsborough courtroom in 1947.
In a special session of Orange County Superior Court on Friday, Judge Allen Baddour granted motions of appropriate relief to Bayard Rustin, Igal Roodenko, Andrew Johnson and Joseph Felmet. Such motions are granted to correct a legal error such as a defendant being convicted under a statute that violates the Constitution.
“I believe it is important for the court to accept responsibility and to use its power to correct its injustice,” Baddour said. “I am dismissing these charges.”
The group of eight Black men and eight white men sought to test the 1946 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Morgan v. Virginia that declared segregation on interstate travel unconstitutional.
On April 13, 1947, the men chose to sit in the front of a bus going from Chapel Hill to Greensboro. Some were forced off the bus by the driver, but four refused and were met with angry cab drivers and soon arrested by police.
The two Black men, Rustin and Johnson, were arrested for refusing to change their seats and the two white men, Roodenko and Felmet, were arrested for interfering.
Two months later in May 1947, the men were convicted and sentenced to 30 days on a prison chain gang.
Before the Chapel Hill arrests, the men had traveled to Asheville and Mount Airy in Surry County, where they also were arrested but where judges threw out the charges, said Baddour.
“We failed these men in Orange County,” he said. “We failed their cause, and we failed to deliver justice in our community. For that I apologize.”
Family members of the four men were present for Friday’s session including the niece of Roodenko, a Jewish pacifist and the former partner of Rustin, a Black gay civil rights activist.
‘Angelic troublemakers’
“The court’s actions this afternoon will remove another shackle of bondage from our minds,” said Renee Price, the chair of the Orange County Board of Commissioners.
The plan to dismiss the convictions began last year after Hillsborough celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Freedom Rides. Price said that’s when she learned that the convictions were still on their records. Baddour led the efforts to legally dismiss the cases.
“Seventy-five years ago, a Black gay man, a Jewish gay man, an astute Black man, and a socialist white man proved that they believed in freedom and justice when they took action,” Price said. “We are here 75 years later to address an injustice and hence force to correct the narrative regarding the Journey of Reconciliation.”
The Journey of Reconciliation began on April 9, 1947, when buses left Washington, D.C. with a group of 16 men who planned to ride to 15 cities in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Like most states then, North Carolina had a general statute requiring segregation on buses, violating the Supreme Court ruling.
Price said exonerating the men on June 17 was intentional, being the eve the weekend of “Freedom’s Day” or Juneteenth, marking the date when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865.
“’We need in every community a group of angelic troublemakers,’” Price said, quoting Rustin.
Though the four men have died, some of their loved ones stood in their place to make remarks and thanked the court for the special action.
Walter Naegle, Rustin’s partner for the last 10 years of his life, joined the special session by Zoom call and talked about the Journey of Reconciliation. He said he also knew Roodenko.
“They were not fighting for their own good, free will but for all of us,” Naegle said. “These freedom riders sought to have our nation live up to its democratic principles.”
Amy Zowniriw, Roodenko’s niece, talked about her uncle’s life beyond his 1946 arrest. He died when she was 36 years old.
“He traveled around the country speaking about peace, and justice and pacifism,” she said. “He devoted his life to changing the world for the better.”
A step to correct an injustice
Other Orange County leaders spoke at the event, some offering apologies, including Chris Blue, the chief of the Chapel Hill Police Department.
“As I’ve read about the Chapel Hill Police Department’s role in the arrest of the four courageous men ... I could only imagine the fear they must have felt when they were surrounded by a mob, pulled off the bus by officers who were sworn to protect,” Blue said. “I offer my sincerest apologies.”
Chapel Hill Mayor Pam Hemminger, and Jim Woodall, the district attorney for Orange and Chatham counties, also spoke.
“We want to say thank you to those families of the wronged individuals for working with us even though it has taken this long to get here,” Hemminger said.
Woodall said the step to dismiss the charges was a “small one” and apologized to the families for the “miscarriage of justice.”
“Today’s a historic day,” Naegle said. “With this action the mark has been bent a little more toward justice. May today be spent in the process of healing.”
This story was originally published June 18, 2022 at 12:49 PM.
CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to say that Mount Airy is in Surry County, not Buncombe County.