Hudson County Community College to Present Screening of Award-Winning Film, ‘Freedom Riders’

February 1, 2016, Jersey City, NJ – Hudson County Community College (HCCC) will present Freedom Riders, the fourth and final film in the series, “Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle,” on Monday, February 29 at 3 p.m. The film will be shown on the sixth floor of the College’s Library Building at 71 Sip Avenue – just one block from the Journal Square PATH Transportation Center in Jersey City. A discussion of the film led by Grace Patterson, the former Director of the College’s Library, will accompany the screening, which is open to the HCCC community and the general public; there is no charge for admission.

The “Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle” initiative marked the 50 ^th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Washington, and was made possible by a grant to the College from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Hudson County Community College was one of only 473 institutions nationwide awarded the collection of four films, which also included The Abolitionists, Slavery by Another Name, and The Loving Story. The initiative was developed using powerful documentary films to spark discussions about the changing meanings of freedom and equality.

Freedom Riders is the Emmy-award winning historical documentary directed by Stanley Nelson about the courageous band of civil rights activists who challenged segregation in the American South in 1961. The film is based in part on the book by historian Raymond Arsenault titled Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice.  The term, “Freedom Riders” refers to hundreds of interracial activists who traveled together in small groups sitting where they chose on trains and buses to challenge the racial segregation that existed.

Additional information on “Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle” and the screening of Freedom Riders may be obtained by contacting John DeLooper, HCCC Director of Library Technology, at (201) 360-4723.