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Freedom Rides at 60

Sixty years ago, five Freedom Riders from the St. Louis branch of the Congress of Racial Equality came to Little Rock. They were 30 year-old African American Rev. Benjamin Elton Cox, a native of Whiteville, Tennessee, and a minister at Pilgrim Congregational Church in High Point, North Carolina; 20 year-old Bliss Ann Malone, an African American public school teacher from St. Louis; 18 year-old Annie Lumpkin, an African American student from St. Louis; 27 year-old John Curtis Raines, a white pastor from Setauket Methodist Church in Long Island, New York; and 23 year-old Janet Reinitz, a white artist and homemaker from New York City. Their actions brought about the integration of Little Rock’s bus terminals later that year.