It’s the 60th anniversary of 1961’s Freedom Ride this spring & today is Bob Dylan’s 80th birthday. Which reminds me of a story I learned from a SNCC friend... 
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee formed after the sit-ins of 1960 to organize a new wave of direct challenges to Jim Crow segregation. The Freedom Ride—Black & White ppl together, riding interstate buses thru the South—was their first big action.
Thereafter, folks on the ground called people who worked for SNCC the “Freedom Riders” (well, the ones who didn’t call them “damn communists” or “outside agitators.”)
The Freedom Riders made some friends in NYC who organized a benefit concert to raise money for SNCC down in Mississippi. These foot soldiers in the nonviolent crusade against racism had decided they were going to turn voter registration into direct nonviolent action.
My SNCC friend, a recent college grad at the time, went to the airport to pick up Pete Seeger, whom he’d already met, & a young guy he’d never heard of. He delivered Seeger & the awkward young man to the venue, heard him sing, & then ran some other errands.
Later, Seeger told him that guy he’d brought down—Bobby Zimmerman—was a genius. He’d be hearing more about him. My friend replied, “You mean that guy in the car this morning? I couldn’t understand a word he said!”
My friend was right about segregation, but he gladly admits he was dead wrong about Bob Dylan.
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