In 1961, a mixed group of Black and white activists board Greyhound and Trailways buses in Washington, D.C., bound for New Orleans, determined to test a Supreme Court ruling that banned segregation in interstate travel. Stanley Nelson's film traces the campaign through archival footage, news reels, and interviews with surviving Riders, including John Lewis, alongside former segregationists and law enforcement officials who opposed them. The buses are firebombed outside Anniston, Alabama, and Riders are beaten with pipes and chains at stations in Birmingham and Montgomery while local police look the other way. Attorney General Robert Kennedy negotiates with Mississippi officials to end the violence, a deal that results in hundreds of Riders being arrested and sent to Parchman Farm penitentiary rather than protected. The film follows the movement's spread from a small CORE-organized trip into a mass campaign involving over 400 volunteers, showing how sustained nonviolent confrontation forced federal action against Jim Crow travel segregation.