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.
Aberjhani, in The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois (2003), p. xvi Completing the story of slavery meant acknowledging the many black abolitionists who advocated for the freedom of slaves. It further meant recognition of the thousands of African Americans who fought to free themselves during the Civil War as opposed to waiting for emancipation.