This quote suggests that the speaker’s friendship with Evie was a major influence in them deciding to get involved in the Freedom Rides of 1966. A Freedom Ride was a protest carried out by civil rights activists in the US during the 1960s to challenge the lack of desegregation of public transportation in the South. The speaker had not initially been interested in participating in these protests, but when they became friends with Evie, a young mother, they changed their perspective and decided to join the Freedom Rides of 1966.