freedom rider

plural freedom riders

1. UShistoricalgovernmentIn the United States during 1961, a civil rights activist who participated in one or more trips by bus or other forms of transport, known as freedom rides, through parts of the southern U.S. to demonstrate opposition to racial prejudice and segregation.

   1 more example

   A Negro leader said today the "freedom riders" whose arrival here touched off race riots last Saturday will continue their test of Southern bus station segregation barriers. [...] [T]he Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. [...] told a news conference the group met for four hours last night and decided that "the freedom ride must continue, we will not specify the exact time, but it will continue."

   1961 May 23, “‘Freedom ride’ must continue—Rev. King”, in Sarasota Journal, volume 10, number 27, Sarasota, Fla.: Lindsay Newspapers, →OCLC, page 2, column 7

2. AustraliabroadlyhistoricalgovernmentA participant in a similar excursion undertaken by protesters in Australia in 1965 in opposition to unfair discrimination against Indigenous Australians.