Other events in Baltic States

On Tuesday, February 21, at 6.30 pm, the 2011 documentary, FREEDOM RIDERS, will be screened at the cinema KSuns. It is free of charge, and everyone is invited to attend. Before the film, U.S. Embassy Cultural Affairs Officer Kerri Spindler-Ranta will give a brief introduction. This movie is screened as a part of Black History Month, which occurs every February in the United States, informed BC U.S. Embassy in Riga.

The 2011 PBS documentary won awards at the Silverdocs Documentary Festival and the Sundance Film Festival. It is the powerful and inspirational story of six months that changed America forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives. Many endured savage beatings and imprisonment--for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South. They deliberately violated Jim Crow laws, which had mandated segregated public facilities like restaurants, drinking fountains, and seating in buses. After nearly five months of fighting, the federal government's Interstate Commerce Commission issued an order to end the segregation in bus and rail stations that had been in place for generations.