Freedom Riders National Monument

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Freedom Riders National Monument
Former Greyhound station, Anniston, Alabama.jpg
The former Greyhound station in October 2017
Location Anniston, Alabama
Coordinates 33°38′6″N85°54′30″W / 33.63500°N 85.90833°W / 33.63500; -85.90833
Area7.83 acres
Website Freedom Riders National Monument
DesignatedJanuary 12, 2017
USA Alabama location map.svg
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Location of Freedom Riders National Monument in Alabama
Usa edcp location map.svg
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Freedom Riders National Monument (the United States)

The Freedom Riders National Monument is a United States National Monument in Anniston, Alabama established by President Barack Obama in January 2017 to preserve and commemorate the Freedom Riders during the Civil Rights Movement. The monument is administered by the National Park Service. [1] The Freedom Riders National Monument is one of three National Monuments that was designated by presidential proclamation of President Obama on January 12, 2017. The second was the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and the third, the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park, was re-designated as a National Historical Park on March 12, 2019. [2]

Contents

Sites

Bus mural and signage, Freedom Riders National Monument.jpg
Freedom Riders state historic marker, field of bus burning in distance behind.jpg
Above: mural and interpretive signage adjacent to the former Greyhound station. Below: view of the bus-burning site in October 2017; the state historical marker is in the foreground, with the field where the burning took place in the middle distance.

The Freedom Riders National Monument comprises two locations, one in downtown Anniston itself and the other outside town.

Greyhound Bus Station

The first site designated as part of the national monument is the former Greyhound bus depot at 1031 Gurnee Avenue in Anniston, where, on May 14, 1961, a mob attacked an integrated group of white and black Freedom Riders who demanded an end to racial segregation in interstate busing. The mob slashed the bus's tires, threw rocks, broke the bus's windows, and pursued the bus after it pulled away from the depot. [3] [4] Today the wall of the building adjacent to the former depot features a mural and educational panels describing the incident; [5] a similar mural has been installed adjacent to the former Trailways station where the other Freedom Riders arrived in 1961. [6] The former Greyhound station was later owned by the City of Anniston prior to its donation to the United States government. [7] It is one of nine sites that are part of the Anniston Civil Rights and Heritage Trail, [3] and is commemorated with a historic marker, erected in 2016. [8] [9]

The National Park Service, in conjunction with the city of Anniston, has announced plans to develop the building and open it to the public, but as of May 2017 it was closed to visitors. [10]

Site of bus burning

Joe Postiglione's photograph of the burning bus Burning Bus in Alabama - Joe Postiglione.jpg
Joe Postiglione's photograph of the burning bus

The second site incorporated into the new national monument is that of the bus burning, located outside of Anniston along Old Birmingham Highway/State Route 202 some 6 miles (9.7 km) away from the Greyhound station. It was at this spot that the bus broke down because of its flat tires. The segregationist mob, which had followed it from the bus depot, continued its assault, throwing "a bundle of flaming rags into the bus that exploded seconds later" which set the vehicle ablaze. [3] The mob attacked the passengers as they tried to flee. [4] Freelance photographer Joseph "Little Joe" Postiglione photographed the bus as it burned; the resulting image has become an icon of the civil rights movement. [3] [11] An Alabama Historical Marker, erected in 2007 under the auspices of the Theta Tau chapter of Omega Psi Phi fraternity, marks the site of the bus burning. [3] [12]

It was announced in 2010 that five acres of land surrounding the site of the bus burning had been donated to Calhoun County for the development of a memorial park; initial plans called for a landscaped walkway, with interpretive plaques to be erected at the site. Possible future features include a statue of Hank Thomas, a survivor of the incident, being given water by nearby resident Janie Forsythe. [13] Since designation of the national monument, the National Park Service, Calhoun County, and the Freedom Riders Memorial Committee have begun working together to develop a plan for interpreting the site; [10] Alabama Power provided money for the effort in 2015. [14] A sign denoting the future presence of the park was erected in 2012. Soon after it was placed at the site it was vandalized, but repairs were quickly made. [15]

The site of the burning is today surrounded by private residences. [5]

History of the monument

Designation of the national monument followed a visit by Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis to the site in October 2016. [16] The designation of the National Monument was hailed by local leaders in Anniston and Calhoun County, [3] who had actively campaigned for the monument's creation. [16] Others who supported its establishment included Senator Richard Shelby; [14] Representative Mike Rogers, who had introduced a bill to designate Freedom Riders National Historical Park in July 2016; [17] and governor Robert J. Bentley. [18]

A dedication ceremony took place on May 13, 2017, in downtown Anniston, on the day before the 56th anniversary of the incident; some members of the audience had traveled from as far away as Denmark. Former Freedom Rider Hank Thomas, the last living survivor of the bus-burning incident, delivered a speech. [19] [20] An interim visitor center, including a station where visitors may procure a National Parks passport stamp, has been established in the reception area of Anniston City Hall. [10]

In 2017, the National Park Service sought input from the public on planning and interpreting the National Monument. [21] Federal and local officials began drafting formal plans for its management late in 2017. [22] In March 2018, the Anniston City Council commissioned Jacksonville State University to conduct an economic impact study for the monument. [23]

The Freedom Riders National Monument is a feature landmark of the United States Civil Rights Trail. [24]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anniston, Alabama</span> City in and county seat of Calhoun County, Alabama

Anniston is a city and the county seat of Calhoun County in Alabama, United States, and is one of two urban centers/principal cities of and included in the Anniston-Oxford Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city was 23,106. According to 2019 Census estimates, the city had a population of 21,287. Named "The Model City" by Atlanta newspaperman Henry W. Grady for its careful planning in the late 19th century, the city is situated on the slope of Blue Mountain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bull Connor</span> American government official and segregationist (1897–1973)

Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor was an American politician who served as Commissioner of Public Safety for the city of Birmingham, Alabama, for more than two decades. A member of the Democratic Party, he strongly opposed the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Under the city commission government, Connor had responsibility for administrative oversight of the Birmingham Fire Department and the Birmingham Police Department, which also had their own chiefs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham Civil Rights Institute</span> History museum in Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is a large interpretive museum and research center in Birmingham, Alabama that depicts the events and actions of the 1963 Birmingham campaign, its Children's Crusade, and others of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. The Institute is located in the Civil Rights District, which includes the historic 16th Street Baptist Church, Kelly Ingram Park, Fourth Avenue Business District, and the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame located in the Carver Theatre. The Institute opened in November 1992, and had more than 25,000 visitors during its first week.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham Civil Rights District</span> United States historic place

The Birmingham Civil Rights District is an area of downtown Birmingham, Alabama where several significant events in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s took place. The district was designated by the City of Birmingham in 1992 and covers a six-block area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WDNG</span> Radio station in Anniston, Alabama

WDNG is a radio station licensed to serve Anniston, Alabama, United States. The station is owned by John and Kevin Kennedy, through licensee Lake Broadcasting, Inc.. It airs a classic hits format.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freedom Riders</span> American civil rights activists of the 1960s

Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. The Southern states had ignored the rulings and the federal government did nothing to enforce them. The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freedom Rides Museum</span> United States historic place

The Freedom Rides Museum is located at 210 South Court Street in Montgomery, Alabama, in the building which was until 1995 the Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station. It was the site of a violent attack on participants in the 1961 Freedom Ride during the Civil Rights Movement. The May 1961 assaults, carried out by a mob of white protesters who confronted the civil rights activists, "shocked the nation and led the Kennedy Administration to side with civil rights protesters for the first time."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First Baptist Church (Montgomery, Alabama)</span> Church in Alabama, United States

The First Baptist Church on North Ripley Street in Montgomery, Alabama, is a historic landmark. Founded in downtown Montgomery in 1867 as one of the first black churches in the area, it provided an alternative to the second-class treatment and discrimination African-Americans faced at the other First Baptist Church in the city.

Charles Person is an African-American civil rights activist who participated in the 1961 Freedom Rides. He was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. Following his 1960 graduation from David Tobias Howard High School, he attended Morehouse College. Person was the youngest Freedom Rider on the original Congress of Racial Equality Freedom Ride. His memoir Buses Are a Comin': Memoir of a Freedom Rider was published by St. Martin's Press in 2021.

William E. Harbour was an American civil rights activist who participated in the Freedom Rides. He was one of several youth activists involved in the latter actions, along with John Lewis, William Barbee, Paul Brooks, Charles Butler, Allen Cason, Catherine Burks, and Lucretia Collins.

Edward Norval "Ed" Blankenheim was an American civil rights activist and one of the original 13 Freedom Riders who rode Greyhound buses in 1961 as part of the Civil Rights Movement, in an effort to desegregate transit systems.

Henry "Hank" James Thomas is an African American civil rights activist and entrepreneur. Thomas was one of the original 13 Freedom Riders who traveled on Greyhound and Trailways buses through the South in 1961 to protest racial segregation, holding demonstrations at bus stops along the way.

Gary Thomas Rowe Jr., known in Witness Protection as Thomas Neil Moore, was a paid informant and agent provocateur for the FBI. As an informant, he infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, as part of the FBI's COINTELPRO project, to monitor and disrupt the Klan's activities. Rowe participated in violent Klan activity against African Americans and civil rights groups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument</span> United States historic place

The Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument is a United States National Monument in Birmingham, Alabama established in 2017 to preserve and commemorate the work of the 1963 Birmingham campaign, its Children's Crusade, and other Civil Rights Movement events and actions. The monument is administered by the National Park Service. Civil rights protesters took to the streets of Birmingham, Alabama to fight in favor of Project C, a campaign against laws limiting African Americans freedoms. They were met with violent resistance from the police.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reconstruction Era National Historical Park</span> National Historical Park of the United States in South Carolina

The Reconstruction Era National Historical Park, formerly Reconstruction Era National Monument, is a United States National Historical Park in Beaufort County, South Carolina established by President Barack Obama in January 2017 to preserve and commemorate activities during the Reconstruction Era that followed the American Civil War. The monument was the first U.S. National Monument dedicated to the Reconstruction Era. The John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, signed March 12, 2019, by President Donald Trump, re-designated it as a national historical park. It is administered by the National Park Service.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old Greyhound Bus Station (Jackson, Mississippi)</span> United States historic place

The Greyhound Bus Station at 219 N. Lamar St., Jackson, Mississippi, was the site of many arrests during the May 1961 Freedom Rides of the Civil Rights Movement. The Art Deco building has been preserved and currently functions as an architect's office.

Dion Tyrone Diamond is an American civil rights activist.

Richard Henry Harris, Jr. was a prominent civil rights leader and pharmacist. A personal friend, neighbor and collaborator of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama, Harris was instrumental in three of the most seminal protests of the U.S. civil rights movement: the Freedom Riders, the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Selma to Montgomery marches. Harris's home, best known as the famed “Richard Harris House”, was Montgomery, Alabama’s central command center and safe haven for beaten and bloodied Freedom Riders as they traveled to Jackson, Mississippi amidst physically violent racial rioters, National Guard protection, and Alabama segregationist authorities’ call for martial law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anniston and Birmingham bus attacks</span> Attack on civil rights protesters by the Ku Klux Klan in 1961

The Anniston and Birmingham bus attacks, which occurred on May 14, 1961, in Anniston and Birmingham, both Alabama, were acts of mob violence targeted against civil rights activists protesting against racial segregation in the Southern United States. They were carried out by members of the Ku Klux Klan and the National States' Rights Party in coordination with the Birmingham Police Department. The FBI did nothing to prevent the attacks despite having foreknowledge of the plans.

The United States Civil Rights Trail is a heritage trail in the Southern United States that provides visitors with stories about the civil rights movement stories at various landmarks. The Civil Rights Trail links historically important Black churches, school museums, civil rights leaders’ residences, courthouses, and other landmarks of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s and the creation of the U.S. Constitution’s 13th, 14th and 15th amendments.

References

  1. ↑ "FACT SHEET: President Obama Designates National Monuments Honoring Civil Rights History". White House Office of the Press Secretary. January 12, 2017.
  2. ↑ Melanie Eversley, Obama designates 3 civil rights sites as national monuments, USA Today (January 12, 2017).
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Freedom Riders National Monument Celebration Set for May 13: Interim Visitor Center now open at Anniston City Archived October 16, 2020, at the Wayback Machine (press release), National Park Service.
  4. 1 2 Freedom Riders National Monument, The Conservation Fund (last accessed April 28, 2017).
  5. 1 2 "Things to Do – Freedom Riders National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
  6. ↑ "Anniston Freedom Riders Murals – Anniston – Alabama.travel". Alabama's Official Travel Guide. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
  7. ↑ "Frequently Asked Questions – Freedom Riders National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)". www.nps.gov. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  8. ↑ "Greyhound Bus Station Protest, May 14, 1961 Historical Marker" . Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  9. ↑ Hayes, Dixon. "Anniston unveils Civil Rights Trail markers to commemorate era" . Retrieved October 22, 2017.
  10. 1 2 3 Super User. "Freedom Riders National Monument Celebration Set for May 13". business.calhounchamber.com. Retrieved October 22, 2017.{{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  11. ↑ Joe Postiglione, Burning Bus in Alabama (The LIFE Magazine Collection, 2005). International Center of Photography.
  12. ↑ "Freedom Riders Historical Marker" . Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  13. ↑ "Historic marker issued to remember Freedom Riders in Anniston" . Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  14. 1 2 "Freedom Rider Park: From a burning bus to fanning the flames of progress – Alabama NewsCenter". July 30, 2015. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
  15. ↑ "Freedom Riders Park – Background". www.freedomriderspark.org. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
  16. 1 2 Ben Cunningham, The Anniston Greyhound terminal: A building's route through time, Anniston Star (October 24, 2016).
  17. ↑ "H.R.5882 – 114th Congress (2015–2016): Freedom Riders National Historical Park". Congress.gov. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  18. ↑ "Secretary Jewell, National Park Service Director Jarvis Hear Community's Vision and Support for Proposed National Park System Additions in Alabama" (Press release). U.S. Department of the Interior. Retrieved January 12, 2018.
  19. ↑ Pat Byington, Freedom Riders National Monument Dedicated (photos and video), Bham Now (May 14, 2017).
  20. ↑ Eddie Burkhalter, Freedom Riders, visitors from around the world celebrate Anniston monument, Anniston Star (May 14, 2017).
  21. ↑ Erin Edgemon (June 21, 2017). "Reggie Tiller shaping Alabama's 2 new national parks". AL.com.
  22. ↑ Daniel Gaddy (November 29, 2017). "Officials drafting document to guide Freedom Riders monument". Anniston Star.
  23. ↑ Daniel Gaddy, Anniston council OKs economic study for Freedom Riders monument, Anniston Star (March 20, 2018).
  24. ↑ "7 Moving Experiences Along The U.S. Civil Rights Trail In Alabama". TravelAwaits. April 26, 2022. Retrieved September 9, 2022.
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