My Conversation with Paul Breines About Being a Freedom Rider and What It Was Like to Risk His Life Fighting Against Jim Crow Terrorism

Paul Breines was a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin and a member of the Student Council on Civil Rights when he was arrested for his participation in the Freedom Rides during the summer of 1961. As part of the Freedom Ride Breines, along with three other students, traveled from Nashville, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi via a Greyhound bus where all four participants were arrested in the Greyhound terminal in Jackson, Mississippi on 21 July 1961. Paul Breines is also Associate Professor Emeritus of History at Boston College.

Professor Breines shares what it was like to challenge Jim Crow terrorism–with his life–as a Freedom Rider during the Civil Rights Movement, how he as a white person made the decision while in college to confront white supremacy, and the rules of living a principled life that he learned from his mother.

Professor Breines also reflects on one of the most important questions of the modern age: What type of White Person do I want to be? And by implication, what type of Human Being should we all want to be?

This conversation is from one of the very first episodes of The Chauncey Devega Show and has been reedited and remastered as a holiday gift and way of saying “thank you” to all of the good and kind friends, listeners, fans and other supporters of the podcast.

On this week’s Christmas holiday-themed podcast Chauncey warns the public about how Frosty the Snowman is really an evil undead wizard. Chauncey also hopes that Krampus–the goat man supernatural being who punishes naughty people during the December holiday season–will take Donald Trump and his wicked voters and other supporters to the underworld as punishment for their sins.

And Chauncey also reminds the friends, supporters, and other listeners of The Chauncey DeVega Show that racism and white supremacy are often absurd but that this makes such ideologies no less dangerous. A Christmas holiday example: in the Netherlands neo-Nazis and other right-wing fiends are physically attacking people who want “Zwarte Piet” aka “Black Peter”, the racist blackface minstrel assistant to “Sinterklaas” aka Saint Nicholas, removed from that country’s and region’s holiday celebrations.

This week’s podcast with Paul Breines can be listened to or downloaded here.