Trailways Attack

On May 14, 1961, two integrated groups of Freedom Riders organized by the Congress of Racial Equality arrived in Alabama bound for New Orleans to challenge the South's continued defiance of U.S. Supreme Court rulings outlawing segregation in interstate travel. The Trailways group was attacked from the start of its journey when white men later identified as Alabama Klansmen boarded the bus in Atlanta, threatened the riders during the trip to Anniston, and then, at the Trailways station on Noble Street, joined by others, beat several riders after the driver refused to continue unless the black riders moved to the back. Charles Person and Herman Harris were punched, dragged into the aisle, and kicked, while Jim Peck and Walter Bergman were also beaten unconscious, and Frances Bergman pleaded for the assault to stop. A policeman reassured the attackers he had seen nothing, and the bus continued toward Birmingham by back roads as the Klansmen taunted the riders with a gun and steel pipe. In Birmingham, a second violent attack, orchestrated by Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor and the Klan, left shocking images and some of the riders with more serious long-term injuries than those suffered in the better-known Greyhound attack. The Freedom Rides nevertheless continued through the summer, with 436 Americans volunteering, until the Interstate Commerce Commission ruled on Sept. 22 in favor of Attorney General Robert Kennedy's petition to prohibit racial discrimination in interstate bus travel, and by early November 1961 CORE testers had successfully desegregated the lunch counters at both Anniston terminals.

Anniston, Alabama · United States