Harris House

Between May 20-24, 1961, Dr. Richard H. Harris Jr. opened his home to thirty-three students from Nashville, Tennessee, who were challenging interstate bus segregation as Freedom Riders. After the group was attacked at the Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station and harassed by rioters, martial law was declared, and the house became a haven for them. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Ralph D. Abernathy, James Farmer, John Lewis, Diane Nash, and others met there to plan how to continue the rides, and on March 24, after solemn prayer, the Freedom Riders were escorted by the National Guard to the Greyhound Bus Station and continued to Jackson, Mississippi. In March 1965, Dr. Harris also assisted local black doctors at St. Jude's Hospital in providing medical care to participants in the Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights March. Originally built at the turn of the century, the house belonged to Dr. Richard H. Harris Jr. (1918-1976), grandson of Reconstruction-era Alabama state senator John W. Jones. Harris served as a captain in the 99th Squadron Tuskegee Airmen during World War II and, as a registered pharmacist, operated Dean Drug Store, Montgomery's oldest black drug store, founded by his father in 1907 at 147 Monroe Street. During the 1955-56 Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dean Drug Store functioned as a command center and secure meeting place, where Harris directed communications and transportation while filling prescriptions. In 1992, the house was listed on the Alabama Register of Historic Places as a contributing property in the Centennial Hill Historic District.

Montgomery, Alabama · United States