'The cross is a little lighter today'

(CNN)The protests sweeping the US after George Floyd's death have brought echoes of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, when activists led marches and staged lunch counter sit-ins and integrated bus rides to demand equal rights for African Americans. To gain a better understanding of how those historic events inform our present moment, CNN reached out to young men and women of that time — brave activists better known as the Freedom Riders, the Little Rock Nine and members of the Atlanta Student Movement. Now in their 70s and 80s, these pioneers tell us how things have changed in the fight for equality -- and how much farther we need to go. Why people protest THEN: For...