"Tour Seeks Tales of Civil Rights Struggle"

[GreenPartyVoter]

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Library of Congress on Tuesday is kicking off a 35-city, 70-day bus tour to create the world's largest archive of firsthand accounts of the civil rights movement, marking the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.

The Voices of Civil Rights bus tour traces the route of the 1960s Freedom Riders, blacks and whites who headed to the South in buses and cars to challenge segregation at every turn and help register blacks to vote, a mission that earned them mob beatings.

Civil rights advocates from the era and reporters who covered the movement will travel by bus and at each stop record stories from people who were alive during that period. The stories will be posted on the project's Web site, and the information will be given to the library in February.

Documenting these personal histories are AARP, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Library of Congress. The trip begins at the National Mall.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20040803/D847PMS80.html