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bachelor’s in 2004 with a double major in psychology and organizational communications with a concentration in health communications. She obtained her master’s in counseling there three years later. Cashion — she calls him a world traveler — is a veteran motorcycle rider, and he jumped at the chance to go with her. She rounded out the troupe with Lambert and her brother, who would follow in an automobile and document the journey. BEGINNING THE JOURNEY It would take place during spring break. The foursome left Washington April 13, 2011, and nearly got a ticket 2/10 of a mile later because Barnette had to run a red light to keep up with her brother and Lambert in the lead car. The police officer checked her story and let her go. Later, Barnette, who had been riding about two years, hit a bump on an exit ramp near her hometown of Columbia. She ditched the bike but wasn’t hurt other than a “rug” burn on her elbow. Lambert remembers her first words after the wreck: “Please tell me you got that on camera. I don’t plan on ever doing that again.” She didn’t, though she said the roads got bumpier in Alabama and Mississippi. Still, there were no angry mobs like those that awaited the original Freedom Riders. Her team had created special T-shirts to publicize the ride, and her “uniform” included a UNC Charlotte sweatshirt. They stopped often to interview people, mostly just passers-by but occasionally people who had seen or helped the original riders. They uploaded video daily to YouTube and blogged about their adventures so the students and others could keep up with the journey. They made it back home April 24, the day before school resumed. And since then, Barnette has used her experiences as she teaches character — there’s that word again — to the Morgan School students. She draws lessons from many aspects of the trip, and she likes to share stories about people from the time of the original Freedom Rides. www.UNCC.edu
| UNC CHARLOTTE
“He said he did what he had to do. He said when people are oppressed you have two options. You either fight the oppression — nonviolently — or you succumb to it.”
For Adrienne Barnette, a former 49ers track and field star (opposite), her odyssey developed as a way to defy a condition called ulcerative colitis.
She recalls the words of Hank Thomas, an original Freedom Rider whom she interviewed in Atlanta: “He said he did what he had to do. He said when people are oppressed you have two options. You either fight the oppression — nonviolently — or you succumb to it.” Or, she tells the story of a man named Buddy, a white volunteer firefighter in
Drew, Miss., who battled fires set by the mobs to intimidate the Freedom Riders in 1961. “He told us about the decisions he had to make,” Barnette recalled. “He said he had to put out fires. All he had to do was do the right thing.” Arthur Murray is a writer based in Indian Trail, N.C. Q411
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UNC CHARLOTTE magazine 19