Teens: 'Freedom Riders' film 'eye-opening'

The nearly 500 students filling the West Islip High School auditorium fell silent as images on a large screen transported them to a time and place in U.S. history when whites and blacks seldom mixed.

A few gasped Wednesday as they watched footage of Ku Klux Klan members rallying, and politicians and citizens opposing full equality for blacks.

Those scenes were sprinkled with interviews and accounts from daring black and white college students who fought Jim Crow laws by riding interstate buses bound for the South and stopping at whites-only sections of terminals. Those actions triggered a backlash that helped push the civil rights movement forward in the 1960s.

The Long Island teens were previewing "Freedom Riders," an upcoming two-hour PBS documentary. Afterward, teachers and students talked about activism as a catalyst for social change.

"A fundamental issue that's raised by the film is who takes responsibility for the values of society," said Hofstra University history professor Michael D'Innocenzo, who teaches classes on nonviolent social change.

It's young people, like the Freedom Riders, "who are going to become the agents of change" and help close gaps between American ideals and inequality, he said.

Students said the documentary was disturbing but also inspirational.

"The film was definitely eye-opening," said Kerri Ohrnberger, 16. "It makes one realize how the past really does affect how we live today."

Nicole Shaw, also 16, said the determined college students who risked their lives 50 years ago were "really inspiring." At the same time, she was horrified by what the documentary narrator called "the depth of the hating."

Some protesters were severely beaten by angry segregationists, who also tried to burn several men and women alive. The first group of Freedom Riders in 1961 had to be rescued in Alabama when they were stopped by a mob.

"It's difficult to believe people were willing to do that to each other," Shaw said.

The West Islip junior class of 479 students who watched the film is predominantly white, mirroring the school population. Some in the audience believed that makes learning about the fight for racial equality even more important.

"I didn't really know about the Freedom Riders," said Debra Savino, 17. "It really hits home when you see something like this."

Aron Chizik, a West Islip High history teacher who helped organize the screening, said it was an opportunity to take students beyond memorizing historical facts.

"We live in a very homogeneous community," Chizik said, "and we need to look at issues of diversity and make sure there is an understanding of what the civil rights movement meant."