Jimmy Allen Ruth, 83 (photo), a 23-year-old Trailways driver in 1961 who volunteered to drive a “Freedom Ride” from Nashville to Jackson, died on Wednesday, June 2, 2021, the Nashville Tennessean reported here.
He apparently drove the second “Freedom Ride,” sponsored by the Nashville Student Movement, and years later was honored for what he did, which in later years he called one of the proudest accomplishments of his life. It was a driving job no other driver was willing to take.
Read the history of the Freedom Rides here.
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Related story: Former Alabama Gov. John Patterson, a segregationist who failed to protect Freedom Riders from white mobs, and later in life “regretted” trusting the local police, has died at age 99. Read story here.