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.
The 1961 Freedom Rides, organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), were modeled after the organizationâs 1947 Journey of Reconciliation. During the 1947 action, African-American and white bus riders tested the 1946 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Morgan v.