Ride 4 Freedom meets Freedom Rider: Two PhDs talk freedom and the best way to get there

Shortly after sunrise Saturday, Peter Titlebaum will mount his bicycle to start a more than 600-mile ride from the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center to the Freedom Rides Museum in Montgomery, Alabama. The Ride 4 Freedom Legacy Tour is a chance for Titlebaum to spread a message of equality and raise money for the two museums and for a scholarship fund at the University of Dayton where he’s a professor of sport management. “Legacy is powerful, and it’s overwhelming,” Titlebaum said. “I’m not sure that the people that were doing the Freedom Rides or the Underground Railroad thought they were changing the world.” He got an unexpected chance to find out what at least one activist was thinking thanks to a recent WCPO story on the experiences of David Fankhauser, who took part in a 1961 Freedom Ride when he was just 19 years old.