‘The cross is a little lighter today’

The protests sweeping the US after George Floyd’s death have brought echoes of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, when activists led marches and staged lunch counter sit-ins and integrated bus rides to demand equal rights for African Americans.

To gain a better understanding of how those historic events inform our present moment, CNN reached out to young men and women of that time — brave activists better known as the Freedom Riders, the Little Rock Nine and members of the Atlanta Student Movement.

Now in their 70s and 80s, these pioneers tell us how things have changed in the fight for equality — and how much farther we need to go.

Why people protest

THEN: For integration of public schools, fair housing and equal access to public accommodations

NOW: For an end to police brutality against people of color; against institutional racism in all its forms

Who is protesting

THEN: Young, mostly black people, based mostly in the South. Many were inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, although others thought he moved too slowly.

NOW: A larger nationwide coalition of people of all colors, including members of the decentralized Black Lives Matter movement

How they protest

THEN: A nonviolent, multi-pronged approach combining marches, rallies, Freedom Rides, sit-ins and congressional hearings

NOW: Peaceful rallies and street protests with flashes of violence in places like Ferguson (2014), Baltimore (2015) and in numerous cities after the death of George Floyd

One Freedom Rider described how nonviolent civil rights protesters underwent training on how to respond when they were verbally abused or physically assaulted.

How they spread their message

THEN: Rallies, speeches, opinion pieces, interviews with the news media, nonviolent protests that deliberately courted violence

NOW: Social media and phone cameras give protesters a new tool that’s used to organize, to spread messaging and to hold wrongdoers accountable

One Freedom Rider described how the open-casket funeral of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old lynched by whites in 1955 in Mississippi, shocked the nation when news photos of his battered face appeared in newspapers across the country:

Their slogans

THEN: “We shall overcome,” “I am a man,” “Freedom now,” “Black power”

NOW: #BlackLivesMatter, “I can’t breathe,” “Say his name …” “Hands up don’t shoot”

One civil rights protester described how some white people in the 1950s and 1960s had their own weaponized language:

The response

THEN: Assassinations, bombings, police dogs, fire hoses, officers with clubs, discriminatory code words such as “agitators,” “outsiders”

NOW: Riot gear, tear gas, flash bangs, discriminatory code words such as “thugs”

A member of the Little Rock Nine described her reaction to President Trump saying that protesters who breached the White House fence would be met by “vicious dogs”: