On May 14, 1961, a Greyhound bus left Atlanta, GA carrying seven members of the Congress of Racial Equality, known as the Freedom Riders, on a journey to test interstate bus segregation. At the bus station in Anniston, AL, an angry mob slashed the tires and broke the windows. After the bus left Anniston, the mob followed it to this site, where the driver stopped to change a tire. The crowd then set the bus on fire and attacked the passengers as they departed. The incident served to strengthen the resolve of the civil rights movement.