National and local civil rights leaders will unveil a historic state highway marker at the corner of Rosemary and Columbia streets in Chapel Hill, Saturday, Feb. 28, at 2 p.m.

The marker commemorates one of the most important North Carolina civil rights protests before the sit-ins of 1960. The Journey of Reconciliation—dubbed the “First Freedom Ride”—consisted of an interracial group that committed itself to test a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1946 that ruled state Jim Crow laws on interstate buses and trains were unconstitutional.

In 1947, eight white and eight black travelers, led by the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation and CORE (the Congress of Racial Equality), prepared for a bus trip from Washington, D.C., to Louisville, Kentucky. The ride's co-leaders were Bayard Rustin and George Houser.

Their arrival in Chapel Hill on April 12, 1947, was largely uneventful. That evening, they met with Rev. Charles Jones, a white Presbyterian minister long active in challenging Jim Crow, UNC students, and members of the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen. They stayed that night with Rev. Jones at the Presbyterian manse, and the next morning attended services at the Presbyterian Church—on an unsegregated basis.

When they departed Chapel Hill for Greensboro on April 13, the bus driver demanded that both white and black riders re-seat themselves according to Jim Crow law and custom. When they refused, he summoned the police and had them arrested. An angry mob of white cabdrivers attacked Jim Peck, another Freedom Rider. When Rev. Jones arrived at the bus station, he speedily drove the men to his home. The cab drivers followed the Freedom Riders and Rev. Jones. They physically and verbally threatened Rev. Jones, forcing him to drive the Freedom Riders to Durham and to evacuate his family from their home. UNC students gathered to guard Rev. Jones’s home. These events precipitated an unprecedented debate on campus and in The Daily Tar Heel about police conduct, mob violence, and the institutions of Jim Crow.

Four of the Freedom Riders were charged in Chapel Hill. They appealed to the superior court judge in Hillsborough, who rejected their argument that they were “interstate passengers” and gave them “equal opportunity” sentences—one month on the chain gang for both the white and black Freedom Riders.

“History was definitely made that day on so many levels,” says Yonni Chapman, chair of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP History Committee, which initiated the highway marker campaign. “The Journey of Reconciliation later served as the model and inspiration for the larger, more dramatic, and successful Freedom Rides of 1961. More importantly, the 1947 Journey served to publicize the methods of nonviolent direct action, which eventually became the guiding principle of Dr. Martin Luther King and much of the civil rights movement.”

“The fact that hundreds of African Americans and their white allies across North Carolina rallied to the defense of the freedom riders was an early indication of the freedom movement to come,” Chapman said.

The Feb. 28 day of events will begin with a gathering at noon at Hargraves Community Center where NAACP President Eugene Farrar, members of the Community Church, and Town representatives will welcome national civil rights leaders who are traveling to Chapel Hill to be a part of the event. Members of UNC-NOW will perform a reenactment of the 1947 Freedom Ride in Chapel Hill. Winners of a middle school and high school essay contest, “What the Freedom Riders Means to Me,” will be announced and read.

Following the ceremonies, a march from Hargraves Center to the dedication site will take place. The dedication and unveiling ceremony will begin at 2 p.m. at the site of the old bus station on Rosemary and Columbia streets. Afterward, a reception will be held at Town Hall, 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

The historical marker was made possible by the Chapel Hill/Carrboro chapter of the NAACP and the Community Church of Chapel Hill Unitarian Universalist, with support from the town of Chapel Hill and the Justice in Action Committee. Community supporters include the Chapel Hill/Orange County Visitors Bureau, the Chapel Hill Preservation Society, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and many other local sponsors.

“A central theme of all Freedom Rider programs will be how to continue the struggle for racial justice today,” Chapman said.

Out of town guests at the Feb. 28 event include Journey organizer, George Houser, 92 years old, from New York. A white Methodist minister and a co-founder of CORE, George Houser has dedicated his career to challenging injustice.

Also in attendance will be Robin Washington and his wife, Julia Cheng. Washington is the producer of "You Don't Have to Ride Jim Crow!” the PBS documentary about the 1947 Freedom Ride (www.robinwashington.com/jimcrow). The video will be shown at the Town Hall program.

Washington grew up in Chicago in a family of black and Jewish civil rights activists. Participating in sit-ins and protests when he was three years old, today he recalls those events fondly as “family outings.”

Washington’s wife, civil rights activist, Julia Cheng, was born in Detroit to immigrant parents from China. She grew up in Cleveland and graduated from Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University. Cheng recently was elected co-chair of Clayton Jackson McGhie Memorial Inc., a non-profit volunteer organization dedicated to remembrance of the 1920 Duluth, Minn., lynching of three black circus workers.

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