Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63

by Taylor Branch

that they were all interstate passengers with a legal right to sit anywhere on the bus, but the sentence was not yet completed when one of the whites standing over the front seat crashed his fist into Person’s face. Another reached over to hit Herbert Harris. The whites yanked the two students into the aisle, kicking and slugging them from both ends of the confined space. As they did, group leader Peck and Walter Bergman, the retired professor from Michigan, jumped out of their seats at the back and ran forward, horrified, to protest. They did not get very far. One of the white men turned from the two students and hit Peck with a blow that knocked him backward over two seatbacks. Another fist dropped Bergman to the floor. Suddenly, the fury of the mob turned on the two downed white Freedom Riders. Some lifted Peck from the seat to rain blows on his bloodied face, while others stomped on the chest of the prostrate Bergman.