This month marks the 50th anniversary of a landmark moment in this country's civil right era, the 1961 Freedom Rides, during which more than 400 Americans traveled through the South on buses to challenge Jim Crow laws.

"Freedom Riders" (UNC-TV, 9 tonight) recounts this story, powerfully, retracing each arduous, inspirational, painful ,and ultimately successful step  on a journey that tested the notion of non-violent activism.

The documentary isn't always easy to watch, mostly because those interviewed have such vivid memories of what they experienced, what they lived through. Thus, the hatred, the fear, the courage, the determination, the moments of clarity and triumph feel so present. That also makes it a must watch.

Saturday morning, amateur hoopsters from Duke and N.C. Central University will get together on the NCCU campus for a day of basketball.

And a history lesson.

It's the Bull City Showdown, an effort by students at both campuses to hang out together, have a good time, find common ground, etc. They'll do this by drawing inspiration from the first time Duke and NCCU students played basketball together.

It was 1944, and whites and blacks simply did NOT do that sort of thing. Jim Crow laws forbid it.

But, as historian Scott Ellsworth first revealed in a stunning 1996 New York Times Magazine article, a clandestine game between the black team from NCCU - then the N.C. College for Negroes - and the all-white team from Duke's medical school did occur, behind locked doors.

For more, check out today's story in the N&O.