The Parchman Hour was a pretend radio show that the Freedom Riders put on everyday to pass their time behind bars.
"What they would do is a sort of variety show. So we felt that the way to present this play would be in the way that variety shows were presented back then," says the play's writer and director, Mike Wiley.
Wiley was teaching at Duke University when a friend of his first told him of his time as a Freedom Rider.
"And I thought, 'that would be a great play!'" says Wiley. "And so I sat down with my class and we started reading and researching and developing what a Freedom Rider play would look and sound like."
His play debuted in December in North Carolina, and here it is in May, being performed for the Freedom Riders themselves, quite literally at the scene of the crime.
It's been half a century since these brave men and women first rode through the south. In 2011, its a much warmer welcome.
"The veterans of the civil rights movement will look at that stage, and they'll go, 'this is the future,'" says Wiley. "These are the kids that will be carrying on my legacy."
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