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.
Inspired by the 1960s Freedom Rides that travelled across the US' south to highlight and challenge the still pervasive racism of the Jim Crow era, the Palestinian version has been going on for the last three years, bringing dozens of activists from Palestine, the US and Europe to spend two weeks travelling the West Bank, particularly in regions where Israel continues to expropriate land and/or resources.