Thirteen passengers board a train in Washington traveling south; their goal was to challenge segregation travel facilities throughout the south. They soon begin to resist and are firebombed. They then see the Ku Klux Klan and police, many of the passengers are beaten. As they enter Mississippi they are placed into jail for their own protection.Since the institution of Jim Crow laws at the close of the nineteenth century, African-Americans in the South had been forced to endure substandard, segregated conditions while traveling on railways and buses. Blacks were forced to sit in the back of the bus and forced to use separate waiting rooms, drinking fountains, and restrooms. In addition to the humiliation of segregated facilities, the threat of violence was always present for black travelers.The Freedom Riders was decisive and unambiguous, expanding the freedom of African-Americans to travel through the United States.