"[James] Zwerg's parents were unaware of the changes taking place in their son. They were enraged when they opened their local newspaper the day after he was attacked and saw the now-famous picture of their battered son on the front page.

"Zwerg later tried to explain to them that what he did as a Freedom Rider was an outgrowth of what they had taught him, but they remained angry. 'These are the two people who instilled my Christian beliefs, my ethics,' he says, 'and now they were saying, this time when I lived my faith to the fullest, they didn't accept it.'"

Read more: John Blake, CNN