CULVER CITY — The largely un-heralded role of Los Angeles Freedom Riders during the civil rights push to de-segregate the South is the focus of a new exhibit here at the Mayme A. Clayton Library & Museum.

Entitled “Get on Board: stories of the Los Angeles to Houston Freedom Ride,” it commemorates the 50th anniversary of the 1961 event, which was sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).


The exhibition, which has the financial backing of the California Legislative Black Caucus, Shrangri-La Construction and LP, Jensen & Partners, runs Aug.10 to Oct. 16 at the 4130 Overland Ave. location.



On Monday, the Museum’s executive director, Larry Earl, Jr., and cultural arts consultant Monica M. Scott, previewed the show for a small number of local journalists.

“Last November we got a call from the California Legislative Black Caucus, who invited us to come and do an exhibition for them,” Earl explained. “[Initially], we were stumped for an idea, but we talked about it and the idea of doing something on the anniversary of the freedom rides came up.

“

Through our research we discovered there was one freedom ride that left L.A. headed to Houston, Texas, in order to meet up with other freedom riders in Jackson, Mississippi. They didn’t make it to Jackson, but there story is just as graphic and important as the others.



Broken down into four headings; Awakening, Offering, Exceptionalism and Renewal, ‘Get on Board’ tells the story of the student activists, who on their arrival in Houston were arrested for unlawful assembly at Union Station Coffee House.



Each of those sections is accompanied by a quote, for instance these poignant words from Diane Nash Bevels in Offering.



“Since my child will be a Black child, born in Mississippi, whether I am in jail or not, he will be born in prison. I believe that if I go to jail now it may help hasten that day when my child and all children will be free, not only on the day of their birth, but for all of their lives.

A collection of black and white photographs, newspaper clippings, manuscripts and documents — many from the personal collection of the Freedom Riders — are used to illustrate the exhibition.



Uniquely, the exhibit also features a mock up the Union Station Coffee Shop, the Houston Jail cell and a civil rights era voting booth.



But perhaps the most dramatic piece is a replica of a freedom bus — created by film designers — that was bombed on March 20, 1961, when a group of Freedom Riders from Washington, D.C., entered Anniston, Alabama.



“A mob basically attacked the bus, slashed the tires and someone threw a bomb inside while they were still on the bus,” Scott explained, noting that many of them wrote their last will and testaments before embarking on their journeys.

“[Luckily] they were all able to escape, but we wanted to revisit and engage visitors to the kind of offering these freedom riders gave at the time. They sacrificed their lives and their physical and emotional health to accomplish their goals,” she said.

Photo: A replica of a 1961 freedom bus that was bombed in Alabama. Credit: Gary McCarthy