After the carnage in Birmingham and the bus bombing in Anniston, Rip Patton and the Nashville students set out to continue the Freedom Rides. Hear how their journey finds them in the crosshairs of Bull Connor and the Alabama Klan and ultimately in a Mississippi maximum-security prison. Rip talks to poet Destiny Birdsong about how the legacy of that activism points the way for current protest, then Destiny transforms Rip’s spellbinding history in poetry.

Versify is a production of Nashville Public Radio and The Porch, Nashville’s nonprofit literary center. Editing for this episode came from WPLN’s Mack Linebaugh with additional editing by Anita Bugg. The episode was written, hosted and produced by Joshua Moore. Today’s story and poem were recorded by Joshua Moore at Nashville Public Radio.

The music is by Blue Dot Session. The show is distributed by PRX.