The Freedom Rides were a series of civil rights demonstrations in which African American and white activists (Freedom Riders) rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test compliance with federal laws banning discrimination in interstate travel facilities. Coordinated by CORE, the Freedom Rides, and the violent reactions they provoked, bolstered the credibility of the American Civil Rights Movement and called national attention to the violent disregard for the law that was used to enforce segregation in the southern United States. Riders were arrested for trespassing, unlawful assembly, and violating state and local Jim Crow laws, along with other alleged offenses.