FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 23, 2015
Contact: Erik Holland, Education Curator
701.328.2792
BISMARCK, ND—The public is invited to attend a free showing of Freedom Riders on Sunday, April 26, at 2 p.m. at the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck as part of a series of national films about the civil rights movement.
Freedom Riders tells the terrifying, moving, and suspenseful story of the civil rights movement in 1961 when white and black volunteers riding a bus into the Deep South risked being jailed, beaten, or killed, as white local and state authorities ignored or encouraged violent attacks. The film includes previously unseen amateur 8-mm footage of the burning bus on which some Freedom Riders were temporarily trapped, taken by a local twelve-year-old and held as evidence since 1961 by the FBI.
Freedom Riders is one of four films produced by the National Endowment for the Humanities and The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History illustrating the civil rights movement and encouraging public conversation about the changing meanings of freedom and equality in America. The State Historical Society of North Dakota received a grant to show these films.
The Abolitionists, a three-hour film, will be shown in one-hour parts with community discussions on May 17, 24 and 31 at 2 p.m. in the Russell Reid Auditorium of the North Dakota Heritage Center.
For more information, visit history.nd.gov or contact Erik Holland, curator of education, at 701.328.2792 or eholland@nd.gov.
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