Similarly, CORE's nonviolent "Freedom Ride" in May 1961 served to challenge racial segregation in the system of the country's interstate buses, which the Supreme Court declared an unconstitutional violation of human rights. By the time they reached Alabama on May 14, the trip had generated little national publicity and had few results, but that day, the violence directed against the Freedom Riders brought national attention to the Freedom Rides. In Anniston, Alabama, a bus was stopped and set on fire. As the Freedom Riders fled the smoke and flames, a mob attempted to assassinate them, while other southerners attempted to save them. The other bus reached Birmingham and the Freedom Riders were dragged and beaten almost to death. The press had a field day. Howard K. Smith, a veteran journalist, released a gripping eyewitness account of the violence. Smith told the nation: “A passenger was knocked down at my feet by twelve thugs, and his face was beaten and kicked until it was a bloody pulp. » Arsenault (2006) believes that nothing had prepared Americans for the image of the burning bus outside Anniston or the broken bodies in Birmingham, and that subsequent reporting opened the floodgates of reaction of the public. Indeed, the movement's leader, James Farmer, later explained that the Freedom Rides had been created for the specific purpose of creating a crisis: "We were counting on the Southern fanatics to do our job for us...we thought that the government should react. if we created a situation that made headlines around the world.” After the long summer of 1961, it was evident that segregation on the nation's interstate buses could not survive and by September of that year, buses were officially... middle of paper ... me who changed l 'America, Random House. , p191 - 19619. Beito, David; Beito, Linda (2009). Black Maverick: TRM Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power, University of Illinois Press. P13020. Kirk, J (2007), Beyond Little Rock: The Origins and Legacy of the High Central Crisis, p121. Dudziak, M (2000), Cold War Civil Rights p.3222. Carson, C. (1995). In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s. United States of America, Boston: Harvard University Press. page 923. j. garrow, D (2004). Carrying the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. New York: HarperCollins. 134.24. Arsenault, R (2006). Freedom Riders: 1961 and the fight for racial justice. New York: Oxford University Press. 165.25. L. Krenn, M (1999). Black diplomacy: African Americans and the State Department, 1945-1969. New York: Sharpe.