Fifty years ago, the Freedom Riders challenged Jim Crow's travel rules, divided buses, separate waiting depots and race-based rest rooms.

It was the spring of 1961, when the first 13 Freedom Riders planned a two week trek from Washington, D.C. They would take two buses through the deep South.

Hank Thomas was just 19 when he boarded the bus. "We had no thought of any kind of violence," he said.