Local MLK Day Event: Freedom Rider from Forest Hills to Speak

Martin Luther King Day will be marked in Forest Hills with a talk by a local man who was one of the Freedom Riders in 1961. On Monday, January 19, at 1:30 p.m., Lew Zuchman will speak at the Central Queens YM & YWHA in Forest Hills, on the historic journey as a teenager which transformed his life. Lew Zuchman’s talk is open to the public, with a $8 donation suggested. The event is at the Central Queens Y, at 67-09 108 Street, Forest Hills, NY 11375.

In 1961, black and white Freedom Riders traveled to the South to challenge local segregation laws. Their journey became one of the turning points in the civil rights movement when the activists were met with mob violence in Mississippi and Alabama. Astoundingly, more than half of the white Freedom Riders were Jewish, including one 19 year old from Forest Hills, named Lew Zuchman. Still active today in social justice issues and civil rights work, Zuchman will talk about this historic and personally transformative journey, about his troubled teenaged years, and the story that led him to join the Freedom Riders and his life’s journey since then.