Where did freedom riders come from?

Answer 1

Freedom Riders were Civil Rights activists, mostly young, white and black, and from the northern states, who took "Freedom Rides" on buses into the southern states in order to test the Supreme Court case of Boyton v. Virginia, which proclaimed that racial segregation in restaurants and waiting rooms in bus and train stations, was unconstitutional. The first Freedom Ride left Washington D.C. in May 1961. Later Freedom Riders went into the most segregated areas of the South in attempts to get Blacks living there to register to vote.

Wikipedia has an article on Freedom Riders.