July 10, 1961

Freedom Riders arrived in Little Rock (Pulaski County). The riders planned a journey from St. Louis, Missouri, to Little Rock, then on to Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans, Louisiana. When the riders’ bus pulled into the Midwest Trailways station at Markham and Louisiana streets, a crowd of between 300 and 400 whites were there to meet them. The riders were then arrested when they went to a whites-only waiting room. The Freedom Rides were a tactic employed by civil rights demonstrators in 1961 to place pressure on the federal government and local leaders to end segregation in interstate transportation facilities.