Jan. 28, 1962 - Official segregation has virtually ended at bus and railroad terminals in the South, Justice Department sources reported today. They did not suggest that whites and Negroes were mixing freely in waiting rooms and restaurants in every rural town. Lifelong inhibitions and fears would keep many Negroes in such areas from asserting their new rights. But the officials said that formal, state-enforced segregation was gone in all but a few terminals. The familiar signs, such as those saying “Waiting Room for Colored Intrastate Passengers,” are down. This change in the South has occurred in just a few months. It resulted from a series of events in 1961, beginning with the student Freedom Rides demanding an end to segregation in travel. After the Freedom Rides were met by violence in Alabama, Federal marshals intervened to restore order. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy then asked the Interstate Commerce Commission to prohibit segregation in buses or bus terminals.
