The Freedom Riders were young black and white activists who in 1961 compelled the federal government to enforce a Supreme Court ruling against segregation in interstate travel and interstate travel facilities. On May 4, 1961, the first Freedom Riders set out in two buses from Washington, DC, toward New Orleans. The riders were attacked and beaten by white mobs throughout the South, and they were jailed multiple times. The violence prompted US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to call in US marshals, and in late May Kennedy finally ordered...

Louisiana was claimed for France by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in 1682. In the early eighteenth century,while the French struggled to create permanent settlements in the territory, but they did establish New Orleans in 1718. The territory changed hands throughout the history of the Americas. The Spanish gained control over it in 1762 and ceded it back to the French in 1800. The territory was finally bought by the United States in 1803through Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase.

New Orleans in 1960 was sharply divided over the practice of segregation. The schools were ordered to desegregate, which angered many...