However, the earliest known reference is more specific: Inquiry of an Italian employee of the bureau elicited the information that a âgandy dancerâ is a railway worker who tamps down the earth between the ties, or otherwise âdancesâ on the track.
Eventually the federal government intervened to see that integration was enforced. By the time the Freedom Rides were over, segregation had suffered another blow. The Freedom Rides became a defining part of the civil rights movement, and the Freedom Riders became models of the heroism that transformed race relations.
Some of the most dangerous and dramatic episodes of the civil rights movement took place on the Freedom Ride. This was organized in 1961 by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a civil rights group committed to direct, non-violent action.