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.
Their demonstration was a turning point in the Alabama civil rights movement, however. The Freedom Rides refocused attention on segregation and racial violence in the state and forced President John F. Kennedy to take decisive action to protect the civil rights activists.