James Zwerg

Zwerg was denied prompt medical attention because there were no white ambulances available. "I suppose a person has to be dead before anyone will call an ambulance in Montgomery" were Jim's words as he lay in the hospital bed after being brutally beaten. He remained unconscious for two days and stayed in the hospital for five days. His post-riot photos were published in many newspapers and magazines across the country. After his beating, Zwerg claimed he had had an incredible religious experience and God helped him to not fight back. In a 2013 interview recalling the incident, he said, "In that instant, I had the most incredible religious experience of my life. I felt a presence with me. A peace. Calmness. It was just like I was surrounded by kindness, love. I knew in that instance that whether I lived or died, I would be OK." In a famous moving speech from his hospital room, Zwerg stated, "Segregation must be stopped. It must be broken down. Those of us on the Freedom Ride will continue.... We're dedicated to this, we'll take hitting, we'll take beating. We're willing to accept death. But we're going to keep coming until we can ride from anywhere in the South to any place else in the South without anybody making any comments, just as American citizens."

Later in 1961, Martin Luther King presented Zwerg with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Freedom Award. After a conversation with King, Zwerg decided to enroll at Garrett Theological Seminary. He met his future wife Carrie. Zwerg was ordained a minister, serving for five years in three rural Wisconsin communities. The Zwergs settled in Tucson, Arizona in 1970 and had three children. He changed his career several times, including charity organization work and a stint in community relations at IBM. Zwerg retired in 1993 after which the couple built a cabin in rural New Mexico about 50 miles (80 km) from the nearest grocery store. Zwerg continues to spread awareness to this day about the trials and tribulations of the Freedom Rides and how love is what is most important. He gave a speech on May 18, 2011 at Troy University Rosa Parks Museum. He spoke about the effect the Freedom Rides had on his life. In a recent interview with Lisa Simeone Jim talked about how blessed he was to have been a part of the Movement. "Everywhere we've stopped people have been so gracious and so kind and one of the things that has certainly been rewarding to me has been to see how many people brought their children; seeing a little eight-year-old boy come up to me and talk to me and say, `May I please have your autograph? Thank you for what you did.' That was pretty special. I appreciated that."

Zwerg participated in a one-semester student exchange program in January 1961 at Nashville's Fisk University, a predominantly black school. At Fisk, Zwerg met John Lewis, who was active in the Civil Rights Movement, and was immediately impressed with the way Lewis handled himself and his commitment to the movement. Lewis was a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a student organized Civil Rights activist group focused on nonviolent direct action. Zwerg joined SNCC and suggested that the group attend a movie. SNCC members explained to Zwerg that Nashville theaters were segregated. Zwerg began attending SNCC nonviolence workshops, often playing the angry bigot in role-play. His first test was to buy two movie tickets and try to walk in with a black man. When trying to enter the theater on February 21, 1961, Zwerg was hit with a monkey wrench and knocked unconscious.

In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) began to organize Freedom Rides. The first departed from Washington, D.C. and involved 13 black and white riders who rode into the South challenging white only lunch counters and restaurants. When they reached Anniston, Alabama one of the buses was ambushed and attacked. Meanwhile, at an SNCC meeting in Tennessee, Lewis, Zwerg and 11 other volunteers decided to be reinforcements. Zwerg was the only white male in the group. Although scared for his life, Zwerg never had second thoughts. He recalled, "My faith was never so strong as during that time. I knew I was doing what I should be doing." The group traveled by bus to Birmingham, where Zwerg was first arrested for not moving to the back of the bus with his black seating companion, Paul Brooks.

There is a reference to Zwerg in a scene of the 1961 Soviet film Kogda derev'ya byli bol'shimi (Когда деревья были большими) (English: When the Trees Were Tall) where Inna Gulaya is an article from a U.S. newspaper describing a Freedom Riders demonstration where Zwerg: "was thrown off the bus and his face was smashed against the hot concrete of the road."

James Zwerg (born November 28, 1939) is an American retired minister who was involved with the Freedom Riders in the early 1960s.