Join us on Thursday, May 12, 2016, at 6pm at Branigan Cultural Center, to screen the documentary “The Freedom Riders”, part of the Created Equal film series.
Attracting a diverse group of volunteers—black and white, young and old, male and female, secular and religious, northern and southern—the Freedom Rides of 1961 took the civil rights struggle out of the courtroom and onto the streets of the Jim Crow South. “The Freedom Riders” tells the terrifying, moving, and suspenseful story of a time when white and black volunteers riding a bus into the Deep South risked being jailed, beaten, or killed, as white local and state authorities ignored or encouraged violent attacks. The film includes previously unseen amateur 8-mm footage of the burning bus on which some Freedom Riders were temporarily trapped, taken by a local twelve-year-old and held as evidence since 1961 by the FBI.
This is the final of four screenings held in Spring 2016 as part of the Created Equal series. As the nation marks historic anniversaries of the Emancipation Proclamation and the March on Washington, Created Equal brings together four nationally-acclaimed documentary films on the long Civil Rights movement. Join us for the film and a discussion on racial equity, civil rights, and our own community.
The Created Equal film series is sponsored by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of its Bridging Cultures initiative, in partnership with the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Among the events and programs to be offered through summer 2016 are lectures, discussions, book clubs, and community research.
The museum is located at 501 N. Main Street and is open Tuesday through Friday from10am to 4:30pm, Thursday from 10am to 8pm, and Saturday from 9am to 4:30pm. For additional information, visit the website at: http://las-cruces.org/museums or call 575-541-2154.
If you need an accommodation for a disability to enable you to fully participate in this event please contact the museum 48 hours prior to the event.