Remembering a Freedom Rider

Ellen Ziskind born Sept. 5th, 1939 was a Freedom Rider who grew up in Lowell, Massachusetts. Currently resides in Brookline, Massachusetts.

July 29, 1961, Ellen and several other Freedom Riders rode a Greyhound bus to Jackson, Mississippi. Upon arrival they entered the "blacks only" waiting room. When police ordered them to move, they refused, and were arrested. She was a 21 years old and a student at Columbia University in New York City.

Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960).

Before her arrest Ziskind worked with Louis Lomax to plan the Freedom Rider benefit concert in June of 1961. Ziskind went on to work at WBAI radio in New York City and later studied at the Massachusetts General dyslexic clinic.