However, the earliest known reference is more specific: Inquiry of an Italian employee of the bureau elicited the information that a âgandy dancerâ is a railway worker who tamps down the earth between the ties, or otherwise âdancesâ on the track.
Eventually the federal government intervened to see that integration was enforced. By the time the Freedom Rides were over, segregation had suffered another blow. The Freedom Rides became a defining part of the civil rights movement, and the Freedom Riders became models of the heroism that transformed race relations.
Get On the Bus: The Freedom Riders of 1961 In 1961, the Freedom Riders set out for the Deep South to defy Jim Crow laws and call for change. Their efforts transformed the civil rights movement. Raymond Arsenault is the author of 'Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice'.