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.
Importance. The Civil Rights Movement was important to the history of the United States and the world. It established that discrimination was unjust and would no longer be tolerated in the country, while setting an example for oppressed people everywhere.he Civil Rights Act of 1957 protected the freedom of African Americans to vote. 1960, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation was illegal in interstate bus and train stations. A group of citizens called Freedom Riders tested this ruling by traveling throughout the southern portion of the country on buses.