Freedom rider Ed Blankenheim dies at 70 By Richard Knee Whenever someone told Ed Blankenheim he didn’t have to risk life and limb in the cause of civil rights, he would vehemently disagree Henry “Hank” Thomas had just such a conversation with Blankenheim last October, when they and the two other surviving civil-rights activists known as the Freedom Riders participated in a panel discussion at the University of Illinois. Blankenheim was not in the best of shape, and both men knew it might be the last time they’d be together, Thomas recalled. Blankenheim had traveled there from San Francisco, Thomas from Stone Mountain, Ga. “I said to him publicly how much I appreciated him, for doing all he’d done when he didn’t have to,” Thomas said. At that point, Thomas said, Blankenheim launched into the story of his first encounters with racial segregation, in the early 1950s: he was a marine, stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and had become friends with a black man. On base, the two were treated as equals, but whenever they went into nearby Jacksonville, separation became the rule. “He cried, because there was nothing he could do,” Thomas said. Blankenheim wanted to challenge the status quo, “but his friend said, ‘Hey, don’t do it.’ It just tore him up inside. So, he told me, ‘Hank, don’t ever say, “I didn’t have to do it.” ’ ” Blankenheim, Thomas and 11 others did indeed risk life and limb in the early 1960s to desegregate lunch counters, bus stations, restrooms and other public facilities in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. Three of them, or maybe six, remain. Blankenheim died Sunday, Sept. 26, of cancer. He was 70. The other known survivors from that core group are U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and the Rev. Benjamin Cox of Jackson, Tenn. Cox said three of the Freedom Riders went into hiding several years ago and have not been located. Edward Norval Blankenheim was born March 16, 1934, in Lake Benton, Minn., and moved with his family to Chicago at age 10. At 15, according to Pam Blankenheim, he lied about his age to join the Marine Corps, going first to Paris Island, S.C., and then to Camp Lejeune. “It was a time when McCarthyism flourished,” he said in an unpublished memoir, “Freedom Ride.” “We all hated communists and a few of us would have the opportunity to kill many in the name of Freedom. “Harry Truman had just given an executive order ending racial discrimination in the armed forces. To Mr. Truman’s credit, that order was immediately obeyed. It did not, however, extend to the civilian population. So you had this dichotomy; you could have black friends on base but because of racial policies in the South, blacks and whites could not go into town together. Blacks had to ride in the back of the bus. Off base, the Marine Corps maintained separate police forces. Black MPs patrolled ‘dark town,’ which is where the troops of color went for their ‘liberty.’ White MPs in the white part of town policed white troops.” “Many of us, both black and white, hated this system but there didn’t seem to be anything that we could do about it. We knew of no such thing as a civil rights organization beyond the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and in the early ’50s, they were not able to tackle a problem of this magnitude. We just went along.” Blankenheim was drawn into the civil rights movement “quite by accident” during his senior year at the University of Arizona, where he had transferred from Wright College in Chicago, intending to pursue a post-graduate degree in chemistry. In the student union building, he wrote, “there were always 20 or 30 black students in the cafeteria. It seemed strange that they would be in a small corner of the room, so I decided to find out why. I began to take coffee with them. The group was suspicious at first, but I was able to gradually gain their trust. “Tom Burroughs, a graduate student in chemistry and a person of color, was the first to open up. He said that the black students were harassed on campus and felt very threatened. He said that he and a small group of undergradutes were forming a group called Students for Equality. He was worried about his teaching assistantship because the college administration was very conservative. But he felt obliged to take a leadership role in combatting racial intolerance. He could not live with the kind of hatred directed at him simply because he was a black man. Tom had made his choice and for him, there was no turning back. There could be no fence-sitting. I felt obliged to join him. … “So when Tom Burroughs explained CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), we both felt that we had found a way to contribute something of ourselves to the fledgling civil rights movement.” The original 13 Freedom Riders first came together at a meeting in a Quaker house in Washington in April 1961. CORE had called the gathering specifically to plan for a Freedom Ride from Washington to New Orleans, Cox said. Blankenheim was, Cox said, “one of those few thousand whites who worked for the American dream - liberty and justice for all. He protested nuclear weapons and racial segregation. … Ed was one of those who stuck his neck out when he didn’t have to.” While Blankenheim called himself an atheist, “I’d say he was more of an agnostic,” Cox said. “At dinner in his house, I’d say table grace and he would never reject it. He had a big heart for all people and for justice.” What Thomas remembers most about Blankenheim was his sense of humor. “During all of what was a very difficult and dangerous time, Ed could always find something funny,” Thomas said. “Ed looked like a mixture of several things - Italian, Jewish and, being from Arizona, he had a pretty deep tan. A couple of times in Louisiana, some of the people confronting us asked him, ‘Hey, you a nigger-lover?’ He said to them, ‘No, I’m a wop.’ ” The only time Blankenheim’s sense of humor abandoned him, Thomas said, was when they were in Anniston, Ala., and an angry, hate-filled mob forced their bus to stop, broke its windows and set it ablaze. “We were all suffering from smoke inhalation,” Thomas said. “We weren’t sure we’d make it out of there alive, and Ed said he, too, had made peace with himself.” In fairness, I’ll inform readers here that I’ve been friends with the Blankenheims for the past several years. This is because my wife, Carolyn, works with Pam Blankenheim, at the San Francisco law firm Leland Parachini. It’s a close-knit group there, much like family, which is why Carolyn continues after her retirement to work there part time. Everyone there loves Pam and Ed, so when Pam got the news that Ed’s cancer was terminal, her co-workers decided to donate some of their vacation time to her so she could have some extra paid time to care for him, Carolyn told me. “One of our associate attorneys gave Pam an entire week,” and Carolyn herself gave Pam a day, she said. When I last saw Ed, a few months ago, I suggested that we shake hands left-handed. I didn’t have to explain it to him, and he smiled broadly as our hands gripped tightly. I’ve been active for many years on First Amendment issues, and I like to think I’ve contributed something to the cause. And then I think about Ed Blankenheim and his 12 fellow Freedom Riders, who LIVED the First and several other amendments, and nearly died doing so. And millions of Americans are better off for it. “We were glad we had the opportunity to change this country,” Thomas said. “He will always be my hero.” Amen. Blankenheim leaves his wife, Pam; a son, Matthew, of Santa Rosa; daughters Leslie Angeline of Santa Rosa and Alyn Herfurt of Cloverdale; grandchildren Joshua Boyne of San Francisco, and Matthew, Danielle and Kristopher Blankenheim, all of Cloverdale; and sisters Sharon Guyette of Buffalo Grove, Ill., and Donna Bennett of Chandler, Ariz. He was preceded in death by brothers Warren, Clayton and Daniel, and sisters Myla Turner and Audrey Ruther. A memorial service is slated this Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Screening Room of the Delancey Street Restaurant, 600 The Embarcadero, San Francisco. Donations in Blankenheim’s memory may go to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 400 Washington Ave., Montgomery, AL 36104. Richard Knee is a freelance journalist based in San Francisco. E-mail him here.