Freedom Rider Celebrates 50 Year Anniversary

Southampton resident Bob Zellner never imagined he would be sitting down at a country store in Alabama eating breakfast with Sonny Kyle Livingston, a Ku Klux Klan member who—exactly 50 years ago—threatened to kill him.

But that’s just where he found himself last week, in preparation for an appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s television show to mark the 50th anniversary of the civil rights movement’s Freedom Rides.

“It was strange, to say the least,” Mr. Zellner said on Tuesday, “especially when the policeman who was with him said that Sonny Kyle never goes anywhere unarmed. That’s the point [when] he pulled out his pistol. That was a little hairy.”

It is safe to say that Mr. Livingston, who is infamous for being photographed hitting a black woman over the head with a baseball bat... more