ABSTRACT
Forming the chronological beginning of the analysis, this chapter traces the development and strategies of the Freedom Rides in the United States, zooming in on the protest movement as initiated by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1961. The legal framing and media repercussions detail some of the negotiations over mobility and point to the role of law and images in the making and unmaking of citizens. It then moves to explore the mediation and embodied senses of mobility. In this context, the acts of Freedom Riders are understood as “dissonant mobile acts.” It sheds light on the powerful racial and gendered prerogatives of mobility by example of the bus. The bus is analyzed as a mobile site of power and contestation through which racial boundaries were closely defined and negotiated.
