<P> Diane Nash, a Nashville college student who was a leader of the Nashville Student Movement and SNCC, believed that if Southern violence were allowed to halt the Freedom Rides the movement would be set back years . She pushed to find replacements to resume the rides . On May 17, a new set of riders, 10 students from Nashville who were active in the Nashville Student Movement, took a bus to Birmingham, where they were arrested by Bull Connor and jailed . </P> <P> The students kept their spirits up in jail by singing freedom songs . Out of frustration, Connor drove them back up to the Tennessee line and dropped them off, saying, "I just couldn't stand their singing ." They immediately returned to Birmingham . </P> <P> In answer to SNCC's call, Freedom Riders from across the Eastern US joined John Lewis and Hank Thomas, the two young SNCC members of the original Ride, who had remained in Birmingham . On May 19, they attempted to resume the ride, but, terrified by the howling mob surrounding the bus depot, the drivers refused . Harassed and besieged by the mob, the riders waited all night for a bus . </P> <P> Under intense public pressure from the Kennedy administration, Greyhound was forced to provide a driver . After direct intervention by Byron White of the Attorney General's office, Alabama Governor John Patterson reluctantly promised to protect the bus from KKK mobs and snipers on the road between Birmingham and Montgomery . On the morning of May 20, the Freedom Ride resumed, with the bus carrying the riders traveling toward Montgomery at 90 miles an hour, protected by a contingent of the Alabama State Highway Patrol . </P>

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