Finding freedom

Rarely have the best and worst elements of our national character been more dramatically showcased than during the summer of 1961.

From May to November that year, hundreds of ordinary Americans, black and white, old and young, sat and stood shoulder to shoulder for what was right. They did this by riding as equals on commercial buses traveling into the heart of the segregated South.

Despite the Supreme Court having twice mandated the desegregation of interstate travel facilities, the status quo remained the norm south of the Mason-Dixon Line. When newly elected President John F. Kennedy and his administration showed little interest in addressing the powder keg issue, social activists decided to force the matter.

What followed is dramatically presented in a new documentary film by Stanley Nelson, “Freedom Riders.” The picture is one of the highlights of the 23rd annual Virginia Film Festival, which continues through Sunday.

The documentary will be presented to students at 10 a.m. today at the Martin Luther King Jr. Performing Arts Center. A second public screening will be held at 6 this evening at Culbreth Theatre.

Each showing will feature a panel discussion with Nelson and several Freedom Riders. The moderator will be Larry Sabato, political expert and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

“This is part of our ongoing partnership with the Center for Politics,” said Jody Kielbasa, festival director. “To be able to screen this film and bring in Stanley and some of the original Freedom Riders is honestly a gift to the community.

“These Freedom Riders are part of history. To be able to bring them in and talk about what their experiences were 50 years ago, I think, is going to be a very emotional and cathartic experience.”

The documentary is one of more than 100 films being presented during the four-day festival. The real-life drama is told by the people who experienced it from both points of view — and through archival film footage and still photography taken as stunningly brutal confrontations occurred.

There is John Patterson, who was governor of Alabama in 1961 — and a strict segregationist. He is seen on television film footage taken in 1961 denouncing the Freedom Riders as fools and troublemakers.

We also see him now as a wiser man who realizes how wrong he had been. In a particularly poignant scene, he admits that his behavior during the Freedom Rides has haunted him to this day.

Viewers will see the bruised and batter face of Jim Zwerg as he lies in a hospital bed after being brutally beaten by members of a mob. Barely able to speak, he bravely says the Freedom Rides will continue until everyone can travel without fear wherever they want in this country.

Time and again, there are images of hate-distorted faces, and men and women being beaten senseless for simply sitting next to a person of a different color. Throughout the film we also see the radiance of love, courage and compassion standing unbowed and inviolate even as blows tear flesh and break bones.

“The courage of the Freedom Riders is just incredible,” said Nelson, who produced, wrote and directed the film. “These are the most courageous people I’ve ever met.

“How do you go into this dangerous situation with no police protection? It was insane that Bull Connors [public safety commissioner of Birmingham, Ala.] would actually give the [Ku Klux] Klan 15 minutes to beat, burn, bomb, [and] ‘Do whatever you want to these people,’ before the police would arrive.

“He’s in charge of law and order in this city. That’s the kind of mob violence and terrorism that people were living with in the South, and was being sanctioned by the states.”

Nelson is an award-winning documentarian who has established a reputation for powerful documentaries. His previous films include, “Wounded Knee,” “The Murder of Emmett Till” and “Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple.”

When “Freedom Riders” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year, Nelson said, the reaction was overwhelming. Each screening received a standing ovation.

For many people, including those who were alive during that summer of savagery, the events portrayed will be shocking. Some of the most disturbing film footage is of a mob of people torching a Greyhound bus in Anniston, Ala., with Freedom Riders trapped inside.

“After these people firebombed the bus, they held the door shut so people couldn’t get out,” Nelson said. “The only reason people got out was because when the fuel tank started to explode, they backed up to save their own lives.”

When the Freedom Riders stumble off the bus, blinded and choking from smoke inhalation, their ordeal doesn’t end. They are then immediately set upon by the mob and beaten with fists and metal pipes.

Framed by flames and greasy black smoke, the Freedom Riders sag to the ground beneath the onslaught. As they endure the blows without as much as clenching a fist, a child steps into the maelstrom.

It is 12-year-old Janie Forsyth McKinney, and her act of compassion will make hate blink in the stare-down with love.

“To me one of the greatest stories in the film is the story Janie Forsyth McKinney tells us,” Nelson said. “At the time she is this 12-year-old girl who sees these people being beaten, and she implies that one of the beaters is her father.

“But she can’t stand it, and goes out and walks right through the crowd and gives everybody water. She does this out of the goodness and kindness of her heart.

“That’s what we want to be about as a people.”

The documentary film, “Freedom Riders,” will be shown at 6 p.m. today in Culbreth Theatre. Tickets for adults are $10, $7 seniors, students and children. Tickets for all festival events can be purchased at Culbreth box office, Main Street Arena (formerly the Charlottesville Ice Park) and online at www.virginiafilmfestival.org.