As a teenager in the U.S. Marine Corp, Ed Blankenheim said he was riding the bus back to base one day when the bus driver stood up and announced over the microphone:

"Now all niggers to the back of the bus."

Blankenheim fought back tears as he retold the story that he said made him decide to join the Freedom Riders of 1961, in a Brown v. Board panel discussion held Saturday night at Lincoln Hall.

As a white person, Blankenheim was allowed to sit in the front seat. His good friend sitting next to him was not. "My friend Richard was so humiliated, he just wanted to crawl under his seat," he said.

Once back on base, he said Richard crawled into his bunk and "couldn't look at me, he couldn't talk to me."

In disbelief over what had happened, Blankenheim went to see a commanding officer.

"We got a war to win, you and I," he said the officer told him. "We can't be concerned with some poor nigger."

Thirteen years later, Blankenheim was told by Freedom Rides founding member James Farmer that he could participate in a "Freedom Ride." As part of the Civil Rights Movement in 1961, the Freedom Rides were organized to take a group of seven whites and six blacks from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans. On the trip, white people would sit in the back of the bus and black people in front. At the stops, they would use restrooms, seating areas in restaurants and other facilities designated for the opposite race.

Original Freedom Riders Blankenheim, Rev. Ben Cox and Hank Thomas relived the ride during the discussion called "Dialogues with Original Freedom Riders."

Thomas and Blankenheim described the violence the Freedom Riders faced. Although the Freedom Riders practiced non-violent resistance, the opposition often did not. While traveling through Anniston, Ala., Thomas said a mob set their bus on fire. As the bus burned, Thomas said people outside held the doors closed, trapping the Freedom Riders inside as it filled with smoke.

"A horrendous black cloud kept coming down, inch by inch," Blankenheim said. "They told us to lay down and breathe as close to the floor as we could."

Thomas, 19 years old at the time, said at that point he knew he was going to die — the question was, "deciding exactly how I was going to die," he said. If he went outside, he knew he would be beaten to death by the mob, and if he stayed inside he would inhale the poisonous smoke.

Eventually, the Freedom Riders fled the burning bus. Blankenheim said Thomas was hit in the head with a baseball bat as soon as he stepped off the bus. Thomas said the incident marked the end of the Freedom Ride for the 13 on board because the bus companies didn't want to risk having another bus burned or driver killed.

Although they could not finish their trip, Blankenheim, Cox and Thomas said they look back on the Freedom Rides with pride. "I am not a victim," Thomas said. "I was a soldier, a warrior."

After the Freedom Rides in 1961, the Interstate Commerce Commission ended segregated public travel.

"I am happy, joyous even, grateful that when the music of freedom was played, we didn't sit it out," Thomas said. "We chose to dance."

The Freedom Riders feel that although the civil rights movement was successful, prejudice has not been eliminated — Cox is determined to work for the American dream, which to him means freedom. He said he has never had a day of total freedom because he experiences some form of racism everyday.

"I wish I could be free one day before I die," he said. "Just one day."