Genevieve Hughes

Who is Genevieve Hughes?

Genevieve Hughes Houghton is known for as one of three women participants in the original 13-person Congress of Racial Equality Freedom Rider and a staff member of CORE. She grew up in the upper middle class suburb community of Chevy Chase, Maryland. Hughes studied at Cornell and upon her graduation, moved to New York City to work as a stockbroker. In the late 1950s she became involved within the New York chapter of CORE, and she organized a boycott of dime stores that worked with chain restaurants that resisted the sit-in movements down south. Hughes started to become ostracized from her colleagues on Wall Street, and she decided to work full time to end racism.

In fall of 1960 she took the position as CORE's field secretary and, in doing so, she was the first woman to serve on CORE's Field Staff. John Lewis spoke of her, "as graceful and gentle as her name" but, "not at all afraid to speak up when she had strong feelings about something". When explaining her decision to join the Freedom Rides she said, "I figured southern women should be represented so the south and the nation would realize all southern people do not think alike". During the journey from Washington, DC to New Orleans, she and the other Freedom Riders encountered many acts of violence towards them, particularly in Anniston, Alabama, where their Greyhound bus was engulfed in flames by angry mobs. She recounts her experience in the Anniston hospital,