The Ride

The Anniston Star • May 2011

Anniston has journeyed far in the 50 years since the Freedom Riders came to town

The ride

Page 2 Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The Anniston Star

the ride

Photo of Freedom Riders courtesy of PBS

the freedom riders

M

ay 4, 1961. A small group of men and women got on board a bus in Washington, D.C., bound for the South.

They were Freedom Riders, organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) to challenge Jim Crow laws. They were young and old, black and white, Northern and Southern.

On May 14, Mother’s Day, seven of those Freedom Riders pulled into Anniston aboard a Greyhound bus, only to be met by a mob of angry men. The bus was forced to stop on the outskirts of town. A window was broken. A bomb was thrown. The bus burned.

The story and photographs were front-page news in The Anniston Star and around the world.

Another seven Riders on another bus, a Trailways bus, escaped Anniston and made it as far as Birmingham, where they were beaten severely by Klansmen.

inside But the Freedom Rides did not stop.

Student activists in Nashville took up the cause. Despite more beatings in Montgomery, wave after wave of Freedom Riders continued to pour into the South.

The route for many of them ended in Jackson, Miss., where they were arrested. More than 300 Riders were locked up in Mississippi’s notorious Parchman State Penitentiary. The wardens never could break their spirit.

Six months later, a federal order was issued to end segregation in bus and rail stations — what historian Ray Arsenault has called “the first unambiguous victory in the long history of the civil rights movement.”

The 50th anniversary of that achievement is being marked with a new documentary, an Anniversary Freedom Ride with college students from around the world — and events right here in Anniston.

on the cover For more than 40 years, there was nothing to distinguish the spot where the Freedom Riders bus burned on the side of Highway 202. An historic marker was finally unveiled in May 2007, thanks to the efforts of the Theta Tau Chapter of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity at Jacksonville State University.

Today, fundraising and planning are underway for a fouracre memorial park at the site.

Cover photo by Bill Wilson.

Inset photos courtesy of BCRI.

• A listing of local anniversary events. Pages 6-7 • May 14, 1961, started like any other small-town Sunday.

Pages 9-11 • Freedom Rider Hank Thomas still has a piece of the bus.

Pages 14-15 • Who was on the bus, and what became of them.

Page 16 • Tom Potts Jr. had to have a police escort to school after the Klan threatened his family.

Page 19 • Bill Harbour of Piedmont was among the second wave of Riders. Page 20 • As a 12-year-old girl, Janie Forsyth took water to the Riders. Page 21 • A full page of photos from the bus burning. Page 23

contributors stories

photos

designers

multimedia

• H. Brandt Ayers • Phillip Tutor • Anthony Cook • Eddie Burkhalter

• Bill Wilson

• AnnaMaria Jacob • Jessica Stephens • Angela Reid

• Chris Pittman

editors • Bob Davis • Lisa Davis

Special thanks • Theresa Shadrix • Stephen Gross

The Anniston Star

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Wednesday, May 11, 2011 Page 3

How the shock of the bus burning became a spur to action

REDEMPTION Y

The Rev. N. Q. Reynolds Anniston Star Archives

es, on Mothers Day 1961 a mob of white bodies merged into an integrated Ministerial Associathugs burned a Freedom Riders bus and tion, which began to speak out, advocating racial calm beat some of its occupants on the outskirts and comity, views carried to the community by The of Anniston, but that isn’t the whole story. Star.

Within a year, a gathering consensus The association’s statements had no more immeof civic leadership resulted in the election of a City diate effect than Christian Muzak. It was the shock of Commission majority pledged to creating a the bus burning that was a spur to action. pioneer bi-racial Human Relations CounMiller Sproull, a respected businessman, cil, but that isn’t the whole story either. announced his campaign for city commisThese were early skirmishes in a longer sioner, pledging to create a biracial Human war; the civil rights movement was in fact Relations Council. This was a time when a civil war whose result was to bring down such a bland proposal was tantamount an historic civilization and replace it with a to defaming the sacraments. It was a step better one. toward erasing the mutually understood A war of civilizations is not settled in social and legal line that had kept the two H. Brandt a year. There would be many battles, and cultures apart.

Ayers casualties; no city or town in the South was Sproull was elected on April 10, 1962 Chairman spared, and no single conflict defined its — less than a year after the terrible events and Publisher people until the triumph of justice became out on Highway 202. Elected with him was clear 10 years later.

Mayor Claude Dear, who aligned himself with the But that is another, longer story. We are focused forces of change. Jack Suggs, an avowed segregationnow on how the forces of good and evil organized ist, was elected Police Commissioner. The majority and revealed themselves before, during and soon favoring change in the racial status quo couldn’t take after the bus burning. office until the fiscal year began on Oct. 1, 1962.

A special advantage held by Anniston was a libThe following spring, May of 1963, Anniston civic eral spirit bequeathed by the two founding families, leaders would feel the aftershocks of the troubles the Nobles and Tylers, who actually lived here with shaking their 19th century sibling, Birmingham. their families and wanted to raise their children in a Hundreds of black students had surged around model city.

Kelly Ingram Park, met by Bull Connor’s police dogs By 1961, serious civic leaders had seen the gather- lunging at children and fire hoses sending them ing civil rights storms — 1954, Brown v Board of Edu- tumbling like fallen leaves — images of incalculable cation; 1955, Montgomery bus boycott; 1957, Little value to civil rights.

Rock Central High School; 1960, lunch counter sit-in An elder of Anniston’s First Presbyterian Church, movement — and were already talking about reach- E.L. Turner Jr., had been in Birmingham on business. ing out to the black community.

At a meeting of the church’s governing body, the sesThe same roll call of events gave black leaders sion, he spoke about conditions in the Steel City and reason to believe change was possible — and where asked that the body be led in prayer that Anniston there is hope, men are roused to action. would avoid a similar tragedy.

Anniston’s dominant civil rights leader, the Rev. After prayer led by Phil Noble, further discusN. Q. Reynolds of 17th Street Baptist Church, and the sion resulted in a motion that the session endorse a Rev. Bob McClain of New Haven Methodist Church, Human Relations Council for Anniston. who had been rebuffed by white Methodist colThe immediate cause of action came on Mother’s leagues, sensed a wise and accepting heart in the pas- Day, May 12, 1963 — an echo of the violent Mother’s tor of First Presbyterian, the Rev. Dr. Phillip Noble.

Day of 1961 — when the tranquility of the holiday Reynolds called Noble requesting an appointment, was interrupted in late afternoon by a phone call to to which Noble readily agreed, and the two black min- Noble from Miller Sproull. isters met with him in his office.

The commissioner’s news was about shotgun Within days, Reynolds suggested a meeting at his blasts, with no loss of life, fired into the homes of two church for black and white ministers “to talk.” Noble black families and St. John’s Methodist Church in and the Rev. Alvin Bullen of Grace Episcopal became south Anniston. He went on to say the Commission spiritual astronauts, exploring a universe new to wanted Noble to chair the biracial committee. them: a culture that was sealed off from every normal On May 14, the Commission met and Sproull opportunity in the white world.

Please see redemption ❙ Page 4 As a result of those meetings, the separate religious

Page 4 Wednesday, May 11, 2011

redemption

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one, and one that should serve as a model for the United States.”

The Council set about its work, erasing Continued from Page 3 Star Archives racial signs at public drinking fountains, toilets and separate waiting rooms at docannounced that the Chamber of Comtors’ offices. But Birmingham and Annismerce had voted to establish the Human ton would be paired in racial tragedy again Relations Council. Two letters were read on Sunday, Sept. 16. endorsing its creation, one from the recThat morning, four little girls primptor, wardens and vestry of Grace Episcopal ing for Sunday School were eviscerated Church, and another from the Ministerial by a Klan dynamite blast that collapsed a Association. corner of the 17th Street Baptist Church in On May 16, 1963, the Commission Birmingham. appointed a nine-man Human Relations That afternoon, in Anniston, with Council of five whites and four blacks, agreement from members of the biracial with Phil Noble as chairman. It included Council, a majority of the Commission and such validating names as Marcus Howze the library board, Carnegie Library was of Commercial Bank, textile magnate to be quietly integrated by McClain and Leonard Roberts and The Star’s executive Reynolds. editor, Wilfred Galbraith, who was also an The two ministers got halfway up the attorney. Black members included promi- “It seems to me this is a most significant nent ministers Reynolds and McClain, and action by the city government and one that walk when they were set upon by a mob. offers great hope for permitting legitimate Reynolds was knocked down and stabbed businessman Raleigh Byrd. from behind. Somehow the two men broke racial problems to be identified and conThe city’s founding ideal was showing free and fled on foot until a passing car sidered in a calm and orderly manner. I resilience. hope that the Council will provide the city picked them up.

Anniston’s decision was rare enough Shocked but calm, white leaders of Anniston with a means of communicato merit a letter from President John F. huddled that evening with Mayor Dear at tion between the races and that its efforts Kennedy, which Miller Sproull read to Sproull’s house and agreed that the library will be fruitful. Your action is a sensible the Commission. The president wrote, The Rev. J. Phillips Noble

The Anniston Star would be integrated the next day.

As Phil Noble put it and library board chairman Charlie Doster agreed, “We had to make crystal clear to the citizens of Anniston, and especially to the hoodlums, that the city was not going to be run by hoodlums!”

At 3:30 the next afternoon, Doster led a delegation of prominent citizens that accompanied McClain and the Rev. G.E. Smitherman, in place of the injured Reynolds, into the library, guarded by a substantial police presence.

Of course, the story did not end there.

There would be dark days ahead, racist rallies, a Klan march, a nightrider murder, a police sit-down strike amidst a near Watts level riot …

But the main storyline is this: In the continuing struggle of reason against reaction, reason won, because of levelheaded white and black leadership. The story of Anniston in the civil rights movement is a success story.

H. Brandt Ayers is publisher of The Star and chairman of Consolidated Publishing Co. He credits many facts in this analysis to the book Beyond the Burning Bus by Phil Noble.

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The Anniston Star

Wednesday, May 11, 2011 Page 5

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The Ride

The Anniston Star

WEDNESDAY

Anniversary Ride comes to Anniston In conjunction with the new PBS Freedom Riders documentary, 40 college students and six original riders are retracing the routes from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, La. The Anniversary Ride arrives in Anniston on Wednesday. On Thursday, the riders will attend the unveiling of historic markers at the two former bus stations.

THURSDAY

Markers unveiled at bus station sites At 9 a.m. Thursday, the Spirit of Anniston will unveil murals and signs at the former bus stations: the old Greyhound station at 1031 Gurnee Ave. (now the home of Howell Signs) and the old Trailways station at Ninth and Noble streets.

They are the first two sites on the Anniston Civil Rights & Heritage Trail.

In addition to signs explaining the history of each site, local artist Joseph Giri has painted outdoor murals of each of the buses.

Hank Thomas, one of the two surviving Riders on the Greyhound bus, and Charles Person, who was on the Trailways bus, are planning to attend.

ANNISTON

CIVIL

Photo of artist Joseph Giri by Bill Wilson/The Anniston Star.

Schedule of Events May 12th - 14th

RIGHTS

& HERITAGE TRAIL

50th Anniversary The Freedom Rides

Thursday, May 12th, 9 a.m.

Unveiling of murals and signage at two bus station buildings Greyhound, 1031 Gurnee Ave.; Trailways, 9th & Noble St. Anniston Civil Rights & Heritage Trail Funding Announcement Saturday, May 14th, 11 a.m.

Reception and opening to the public of “Courage Under Fire� photographic exhibit Public Library of Anniston-Calhoun County, 108 E. 10th St.

For info call

(256) 236-0996

STATE R EPRESENTATIVE HOUSE DISTRICT 40

The Anniston Star

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Wednesday, May 11, 2011 Page 7

SATURDAY

Photo exhibit at Anniston library “Courage Under Fire,” an exhibit of photos taken of the attack on the Greyhound bus, will be displayed at the Public Library of Anniston-Calhoun County from Saturday through July 15.

The exhibit was organized by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. The photos were taken by Joseph Postiglione, and published in The Anniston Star. They appeared in newspapers around the world.

A public reception will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday. John Postiglione, the photographer’s son, plans to attend.

The exhibit will be open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. (It will be closed for a few days during other programming.)

For a sampling of the photos, see Page 23. The entire collection of 64 photos from the BCRI, along with FBI testimony given about each, are online at AnnistonStar.com — along with two photos that were only recently discovered in the newspaper’s archives.

Photo of bus mural by Joseph Giri

by Bill Wilson/The Anniston Star.

MONDAY

Freedom Riders documentary airs The new PBS documentary Freedom Riders will air at 8 p.m. Monday on Alabama Public Television. The two-hour film features testimony from riders, state and federal politicians and journalists who witnessed the rides — as well as comments from Star publisher H. Brandt Ayers. It also includes never-before-seen footage of the Greyhound bus burning, taken by a bystander with an 8mm camera.

Land of the Free

Mayor Gene Robinson

The 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Rides holds a special place in the hearts and history of all Americans, but especially citizens of Anniston.

As a community, the City of Anniston has learned from these historic events, whose lessons remain true 50 years later that together we shall overcome.

Paid political advertisement by Gene Robinson, 1000 Noble Street, Anniston, Alabama 36201

Page 8 Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The Anniston Star

The Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce welcomes the men and women who are here to honor the Freedom Riders. We are proud to include the Civil Rights Trail in our upcoming magazine, “Images of Calhoun County: Trails.�

Call (256) 237-3536 or email info@calhounchamber.com to reserve your free copy. Only a limited number of copies will be available.

The Anniston Star

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Wednesday, May 11, 2011 Page 9

Sunday, May 14, 1961

THE DAY

The day that would change Anniston’s place in history began like any other small-town Sunday

Photos by Joe Postiglione/Courtesy of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

Story by phillip tutor on page 10

Page 10 Wednesday, May 11, 2011

S

unrise, as it often does on late spring days, illuminated the beauty of the Cheaha Valley on Mother’s Day 1961. Like a newborn, the day carried expectations of church and family celebrations and the relaxation of the week’s grandest time.

Anniston awoke slowly, gently, its Sunday morning routine hard to disrupt.

It was cool, not quite 60 degrees, when dawn broke. Newspaper carriers finished their last routes with The Star’s Sunday edition, the heftiest of the week.

In slippers and robes, subscribers sat down with their morning coffee and were greeted by the day’s headlines. “Laos Peace Pact Signaled by Three Warring Groups,” The Star’s lead story proclaimed.

Beneath it were others: “JFK Plans Message for Rally,” “Strife, Plots Tear State Legislature” and “Okay Given Plans Here on Museum.”

In Wellborn, family and friends of teenager Judy Chandler were still ecstatic from the night before, when Judy won the first Miss Wellborn beauty pageant.

On Christine Avenue, the family of prominent Anniston businessman Carter Poland, owner of Poland Soap Works on 10th Street, was in mourning after his sudden death on Saturday. Up the street at Anniston Memorial Hospital, nurses’ Sunday morning workloads were lessened because 29 patients had been released the previous afternoon.

WHMA AM-1390 — “Your Good Music Station” — signed on at 6 with an hour of gospel music. Fifteen minutes of world and national news would soon follow.

Across town, rich families and poor families, black families and white families, rose in seeming unison to ready their Sunday best. Fifteen denominations were

the ride

represented in the town’s 100 churches, and elders and deacons and priests were preparing each of them for the day’s anticipated Mother’s Day services.

At Anniston Country Club on Highland Avenue, where the monied white residents lounged, nearly 50 golfers would soon arrive for another round of qualifying for the club’s spring invitational. Jim Martin’s 72, shot the day before, was the score to beat.

10 a.m.: A bus heads for Anniston

At 10 a.m., an aging Greyhound bus left Atlanta for its normal Sunday morning route to Birmingham. It was a holiday morning, so the passenger list was sparse.

Of the 14 people on board, seven were Freedom Riders, black and white, who were testing the equality of America’s interstate transit system. Also on board were two journalists and two undercover agents of the Alabama Highway Patrol.

8:30 a.m.: As the bus inched its way through Expecting a wonderful day western Georgia, Anniston’s sanctuarJust before 8:30, churchgoers began ies opened their doors. At 10:50, several trickling in to The Church of St. Michael churches began their Mother’s Day servicand All Angels, one of the city’s architeces; others followed at the customary time tural and spiritual masterpieces. Invoking of 11. The Bible Belt, in full display. the mood of the day, St. Michael’s invited Dr. B. Locke Davis at Parker Memorial mothers and children to be guests of the Baptist entitled his sermon, “A Christian rector at a Mother’s Day breakfast in the Home.” At Central Church of Christ at 16th church’s assembly room. and Noble streets, Pastor Elbert M. Young An hour later, the city’s houses of wor- preached “I Surrender All.” The Rev. J. Philship resonated with the activity of Sunday lips Noble of First Presbyterian Church School lessons and fellowship hours. delivered his sermon, “God’s Exceeding Love.” At St. Michael’s, Dr. Earl Ray Hart’s Smiles were abundant. Ministers looked over their notes for their coming sermons. sermon was entitled, “Happiness.”

As Anniston’s spiritual leaders were They expected big crowds, Easter-like, delivering their weekly messages, 90 miles in a few hours. The day, warming nicely to the east, another bus, a Trailways bus, without a cloud in the sky, was evolving with storybook precision: stunning, com- was leaving Atlanta for Birmingham. On the bus were seven Freedom Riders. A few forting, inviting. The type of day when seats were occupied by Klansmen. Travelfamilies would worship together, lunch ing along were a reporter and photogratogether and spend the afternoon doing nothing more than enjoying each other’s pher from Jet magazine.

On McClellan Boulevard, cooks at Lee’s company.

Drive-In Restaurant hurried to prepare for On television, Birmingham’s WBRCan expected overflow Mother’s Day crowd.

6 signed on the air with The Gene Autry All week, Lee’s owners had advertised Show.

Anniston’s bus stations on Noble Street 99-cent ½ fried-chicken lunches. Families who took mom out to eat would also and Gurnee Avenue were quiet.

The Anniston Star receive a free Mother’s Day gift.

Around 11:30, as Anniston’s churches were in full bloom, the Greyhound bus stopped in Tallapoosa, Ga., on the Alabama-Georgia border. Thirty minutes later, it would make its final stop in Heflin, before arriving in Anniston.

The day was getting warmer, as May days tend to do in Calhoun County. Clouds began to form overhead, though no one was expecting any rain.

At noon, Anniston’s churchgoers flowed from the sanctuaries, where they’d heard moving messages by the city’s best pastors and priests. Glen Addie Baptist heard the words of the Rev. Billy Kitchens.

At West Side Baptist, the Rev. Durro E. Wood delivered the sermon. The Rev. L.J. Chambliss did the same at West Anniston Baptist Church.

In the early afternoon, workers at the city’s movie theaters readied for the day’s matinees. Golfers at ACC traipsed about the course. Families went to lunch, either at home or at the few open restaurants.

Baseball fans who used to follow the Anniston Rams, the city’s minor-league team that disbanded in 1950, went home to listen to the Birmingham Barons on WHMA or watch the Major Leagues’ game of the week: Detroit at the New York Yankees, on WBRC. At Anniston’s churches, pastors regrouped to prepare for night services and the expected large crowds.

On Gurnee Avenue, there was activity at the Greyhound station.

The blinds were lowered. The door was locked. A white sign was taped to the righthand door’s glass window.

“Closed.”

12:50 p.m.: Calm gives way to storm The lunch hour was ending when the first Freedom Riders bus pulled onto Gurnee Avenue just shy of 1 o’clock. A few people standing on the side of the road watched the bus as it drove through town. Arriving via U.S. 78, it headed north, circled the station and entered the loading area from a back alleyway. No one was around; no ruckus, no police, no commotion. Roy Robinson, the Greyhound Bus Co.’s regional manager, was the first of two people to get off the bus. The Freedom Riders stayed put.

Nearby on Noble Street, people began to arrive at the Calhoun Theater and The Ritz to buy tickets for the afternoon’s matinees. Some of them were soldiers from Fort McClellan, a pleasant and familiar downtown sight on Sunday afternoons. A military-themed double-feature — Korea Patrol and Drums in the Deep South — would begin at 1:40. Return to Peyton Place, starring Carol Lynley and Jeff Chandler, was scheduled at 1:50.

The Anniston Star A few blocks away, a crowd of about 50 men emerged as Robinson opened the bus door. Mother’s Day civility disappeared.

An 18-year-old Klansman sat down in front of the bus to keep it from escaping.

Toughs yelled racial insults at the Freedom Riders. Windows were broken, and someone slashed the bus’ left-front tire. Police arrived, but made no arrests.

Later, Anniston Police Chief J.L. Peek told a Star reporter that he “saw no violation of the law. In all the mob, I did not see a soul I knew, and I know a lot of people.”

Just after 1:30, Peek’s officers moved the mob from the front of the bus and allowed it to continue its trek westward. Patrol cars escorted the bus to the city limits. Cars carrying Klansmen and others followed behind.

Around town, Annistonians went on with their day. Some traveled south to Oxford Lake. Some joined the McClellan soldiers at the movies. Others enjoyed the traditional day of rest: at home, no work, just family and friends. Many looked forward to returning to church later that evening.

Six miles outside town, near Forsyth and Son Grocery on Alabama 202, the driver of the Greyhound bus pulled over to the side of the road, his slashed tire flat.

Police officers hadn’t followed that far, but the mob had.

Soon, the second Freedom Riders bus would pull into Anniston.

1:45 p.m.: Violence on our streets For 45 minutes, the disabled bus starred in a scene of violence and destruction on the city’s western boundary, near Bynum.

Undercover agent Ell Cowling, now armed, bravely kept the mob from entering the bus. More windows were broken. Through one of those windows someone tossed burning rags into the bus, which the Riders couldn’t put out.

In less than five minutes, the Riders and the other passengers had all escaped the smoking, burning bus, some through broken windows, others through the main door.

Some lay on the ground, wheezing, gasping for air. Others fretted about the mob, and wondered why patrolmen who’d finally arrived weren’t doing more than they were.

Around 2 p.m., with the Noble Street movie houses doing brisk business, the second Freedom Riders bus pulled into town. It stopped briefly at the Trailways station on Noble. There, Riders nervously got off the bus, bought a few sandwiches at the station’s lunch counter and returned to their seats.

For the next 20 minutes, Klansmen

Wednesday, May 11, 2011 Page 11

the ride intent on moving the Riders to the back of the bus beat them, hit them in the face, kicked them in the head, and pulled them toward the back rows. Blood flowed. On Mother’s Day, violence was erupting at two separate spots, on two different buses.

By half-past 2, the Greyhound bus on 202 was no longer a bus; it was a scorched, metal shell that wouldn’t make it to Birmingham intact. Black smoke billowed skyward. An ambulance arrived from town and, after tense moments between the ambulance driver and Agent Cowling, took a few of the Riders to Anniston Memorial’s emergency room.

As the Greyhound Riders were at the emergency room, seeking help from reluctant hospital staff and trying to arrange rides out of town, the Trailways Freedom Riders bus began moving toward Birmingham, its Riders beaten but alive.

Golfers at ACC, like movie-goers on Noble Street, were unaware. Though the club’s course was only a mile or two east of downtown, the commotion on Noble Street and out on 202 wasn’t heard on Highland Avenue. The day was gorgeous, the temperature nearing 87. The golfing was good.

At 3 p.m., the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses began its afternoon service.

“Maintaining an Honorable Marriage” was the message of presiding minister E.J. Painter.

At 4:15, the Trailways bus with its battered Freedom Riders pulled into the station in Birmingham.

The beatings commenced, again.

5:15 p.m.: A day’s meaning

Anniston’s services lasted until after sundown, the flocks twice-churched for Their sunny Mother’s Day hardly com- the coming week. Residents returned plete, Annistonians sprang back to life in home, where some turned on their televithe evening. The calendar was full. Out at sions for the Sunday night entertainment Fort McClellan, the heralded Women’s of Ed Sullivan and Jack Benny on WBRC Army Corps band held its weekly concert and Walt Disney and Shirley Temple on at 5:15; all county residents were invited WAPI. to attend. Workers at the Calhoun Theater Most Freedom Riders, meanwhile, cleaned the aisles in preparation for the didn’t depart Anniston Memorial until 6:35 showing. Out at the Midway Drive-In nearly midnight, when rescuers arrived Theater, owner Thomas Coleman hoped from Birmingham to whisk them to safefor a big crowd for the 7 p.m. showing ty. Of the thirteen passengers treated at of All in a Night’s Work, starring Dean the hospital, three were admitted. Two of Martin and Shirley MacLaine. Likewise, the Freedom Riders remained overnight. the Bama Drive-In was about to open its At daybreak the next morning, Star gates for that night’s Peter Ustinov feaeditors were preparing the Monday afterture, The Sundowners. noon edition. Adrenaline flowed in the As the sun set on May 14, 1961, there West 10th Street newsroom. When the were two Annistons: one in the churches, press rolled, the front page headline told where spoken words touched the souls of the story of Mother’s Day 1961: “Mob those sitting in the pews. The other was Rocks, Burns Big Bus In County Racial at Anniston Memorial, where the emerIncident.” Rightly, The Star heralded gency room was filled with Freedom Rid- Cowling’s bravery: “Investigator Hero In ers and nurses and FBI agents and police Attack On Bus.” officers. Klansmen and bullies were outThat afternoon, nine time zones away side, waiting. in Russia, Radio Moscow commented on At 7:15, South Side Baptist Church on the Anniston bus burning. Mother’s Day Constantine Avenue began the first of in the city, equally beautiful and horribly its week-long revival services. At 7:30, at violent, had become a global event.

First Christian Church’s revival, evangePhillip Tutor is The Star’s commentary list Faust A. Matthews spoke on “Bringing editor. This narrative was created using Truth for Open Hearts.” The Rev. Noble information from Federal Bureau of Invesdelivered the message “How to Keep Life tigation files, archives of The Anniston in Focus” at First Presbyterian. Dr. Davis’ Star and Freedom Riders: 1961 and the sermon at Parker Memorial was entitled, Struggle for Racial Justice by Ray Arsenault.

“Unto a Full-Grown Christian.”

Photos by Joe Postiglione/Courtesy of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

“The civil rights movement was all about removing the Jim Crow laws that would cause people to want to kill me for wanting to sit on the front seat of a bus. …

Our sole function was to change these kinds of things.

Well, we did.”

—Hank Thomas, Freedom Rider

Photo by Bill Wilson/The Anniston Star

“The civil rights movement was all about removing the Jim Crow laws that would cause people to want to kill me for wanting to sit on the front seat of a bus. …

Our sole function was to change these kinds of things.

Well, we did.”

—Hank Thomas, Freedom Rider

Photo by Bill Wilson/The Anniston Star

Page 14 Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The Anniston Star

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Remembering the journey

A Rider wishes for reconciliation

By Eddie Burkhalter eburkhalter@thepiedmontjournal.com

Among photographs of old friends and paintings from the civil rights movement, Freedom Rider Hank Thomas keeps a small piece of the bus he nearly died on. It is a reminder he does not need, but a reminder nonetheless.

“That day has never left me. It’s a part of the road that I’ve traveled,” Thomas said, speaking thomas by phone last week.

Thomas was one of seven Freedom Riders on the Greyhound bus that was firebombed in Anniston on May 14, 1961. He was 19, a student at Howard University, the historically black college in Washington, D.C.

Even though his first attempt ended in Anniston, Thomas returned with another wave of Freedom Riders, eventually landing in Unit 17 of the Parchman prison farm in Mississippi, a destination shared by hundreds of Riders.

All told, Thomas was arrested 22 times in the course of his civil rights activism.

After the Freedom Rides, he joined the Army and headed to Vietnam. Shot during an ambush in 1966, he spent more than five months recuperating in the hospital.

After the Army, he moved to Atlanta, where he is now a successful businessman who owns several hotel and fast food restaurant franchises.

Thomas said a 1994 trip to Vietnam gave him a chance to come to terms with what he had seen in the war. He described the trip as a defining moment in his life, a chance to reconcile and to heal.

He had hoped for a repeat of that expe-

The Original Cost Plus 10%

rience this month in Anniston. Thomas tried to meet with one of the men charged (but never convicted) in the firebombing of the bus. But the man refused.

“I guess he can’t come to grips with what he has done, but I have moved on with my life, and I’ve had a very blessed life,” Thomas said.

Thomas will be in Anniston Wednesday and Thursday to take part in the events remembering the Freedom Riders.

He hopes to rejoice in what he and his fellow civil rights activists were able to do.

Educational opportunities, fair housing, workplace opportunities and an end to the Jim Crow laws that fueled the fire that nearly killed him are all due in part to the Freedom Rides, he said.

“Our sole function was to change these kinds of things. Well, we did.”

The 50th anniversary Freedom Ride will end with five days of reflection and celebration in Jackson, Miss., a place very

different from the Jackson of 1961.

“We came to Jackson 50 years ago. You had a white, segregationist, racist mayor.

You had a white police chief. All those positions have been replaced, and now you have a black mayor. You have a black woman for a police chief,” he said.

“You have more black elected officials in the state of Mississippi than in any other state in the South; percentage-wise, more than any other state in the nation,” Thomas added.

Thomas is one of only two surviving Freedom Riders from the Greyhound bus destroyed in Anniston. The other, Genevieve Hughes, is in bad health.

Thomas expects only a handful of living Freedom Riders will make it to Jackson. “But they will go,” he said, “and they will rejoice in what they’ve done.”

Eddie Burkhalter is news editor for the Piedmont Journal.

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The Anniston Star

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the ride

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Mississippi state Sen. John Horhn of Jackson, right, presents Hank Thomas with a resolution honoring him for his work during the Freedom Rides of 1961 at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., on March 16.

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the ride Page 16 Wednesday, May 11, 2011

the passengers

Healing

Our Community One Child At A Time

the greyhound bus

Worked to increase minority turnout in elections. Died in Bronxville, N.Y., Of the 14 passengers on the Greyon July 11, 2000, at age 69. hound bus, seven were Freedom 5. Mae Frances Moultrie, 24, Riders. Two are still living. black female, Sumter., S.C., student at Morris College. Taught school in 1. Genevieve Hughes, 28, white Wilmington, Del., until 1990. Perfemale, Washington, D.C., CORE formed missionary work in Liberia, field secretary. After the Rides, she Mexico and Canada, and taught at studied sociology at the University of California and participated in the Sanctuary Christian Academy in Philadelphia. Died in 2010. free speech movement at Berkeley.

6. Joseph (Joe) Perkins, 27, black Later moved to Carbondale, Ill., and male, Owensboro, Ky., CORE field worked as the director of a women’s secretary. Later studied at Kentucky shelter before retiring.

State University. Enlisted in the 2. Albert (Bert) Bigelow, 55, Army. Taught biology in New York. white male, Cos Cob, Conn., retired Died in 1976 at age 43.

Naval officer, architect, housing 7. Edward (Ed) Blankenheim, administrator, peace activist. Later became a trustee at a Quaker school 27, white male, Tucson, Ariz., carpenter, University of Arizona stuin New Hampshire and a senior dent. Arrested in San Francisco in judge for the U.S. Yacht Racing 2000 for advocating the rights of Union. He completed two transhandicapped bus riders. Died in San Atlantic crossings. He died in Walpole, Mass., on Oct. 6, 1993, at age 87. Francisco on Sept. 26, 2004, at age 70.

3. Henry (Hank) Thomas, 19, Other passengers included: black male, St. Augustine, Fla., stu1. Charlotte Devree, journalist dent at Howard University. Later joined the Army and received a Pur- covering the Rides.

2. Moses Newson, journalist covple Heart for injuries sustained in the ering the Rides.

Vietnam War. Now lives in Atlanta, 3. Roy Robinson, manager of the where he owns several hotels and Atlanta Greyhound station. fast food restaurants.

4. Ell Cowling, undercover agent 4. Jimmy McDonald, 29, black for Alabama Highway Patrol. male, New York, N.Y., folk singer, 5. Harry Sims, undercover agent CORE volunteer. Later became a TV for Alabama Highway Patrol. host and executive director of the Yonkers Human Rights Commission.

6. Several regular passengers.

the trailways bus

house College. Is participating in the 50th Anniversary Freedom Ride.

The Trailways bus, which also 5. Herman Harris, 21, black male, contained seven Freedom Riders, continued on to Birmingham, where Englewood, N.J., student at Morris College. the Riders were beaten.

6. Ivor (Jerry) Moore, 19, black male, Bronx, N.Y., student at Morris 1. Frances Bergman, 57, white College. female, Detroit, Mich., retired ele7. Isaac (Ike) Reynolds, 27, black mentary school teacher and adminmale, Detroit, Mich., CORE field istrator. secretary, student at Wayne State 2. Walter Bergman, 61, white University. male, Detroit, Mich., retired profesOther passengers included: sor, Wayne State University and Uni1. Simeon Booker, Jet magazine versity of Michigan. writer 3. James Peck, 46, white male, 2. Ted Gaffney, Jet photographer New York., N.Y., editor of CORE-lator.

3. Several Klansmen.

4. Charles Person, 18, black male, Atlanta, Ga., student at More4. Several regular passengers.

— Compiled by Eddie Burkhalter, SOURCES: Freedom Riders

by Ray Arsenault, PBS, Lexington Herald-Leader

The Anniston Star

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The Anniston Star

Wednesday, May 11, 2011 Page 17

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The Anniston Star

The Anniston Star

Wednesday, May 11, 2011 Page 19

the ride

Remembering the journey

Recalling a father’s ‘courageous stand’

By Anthony Cook

Potts’ namesake, local WDNG radio station owner Tom Potts Sr., broadcast live radio reports from the scene of the Tom Potts Jr. is the owner of Potts 1961 bus burning.

Marketing Group, a local public relations/ “That afternoon, Dad got a call from a marketing agency. He’s the spokesman KKK member, who said they were there for the Foothills Comto protect him and his kind, and that he munity Partnership, the needed to make that clear on the radio,� entity in charge of indusPotts said in a recent interview. trial lead cleanup for the After the elder Potts made it clear that area. And he’s involved he wasn’t changing his radio report, he with the Longleaf Arts was threatened.

Council, which orga“You have a business and a young famnizes events like Music ily,� the caller said. at McClellan. “You don’t want anything to happen The 56-year-old has to that.� carved a name for himIn his editorial broadcast the next day, potts self as a local voice that Potts Sr. stayed true to his original report works to improve condiand also recounted the phone conversations for his community. tion from the day before.

The apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

The senior Potts continued to stand by Potts was 6 years old when Ku Klux his convictions, airing a couple of scathKlan members and a mob of white sepaing editorials about the bombing of Miller ratists attacked a busload of black and Sproull’s hardware business in 1964, and white Freedom Riders traveling through “about how unbelievable it was that we Anniston. were accepting this kind of behavior in acook@annistonstar.com

our community,� Potts Jr. said.

A week later, on Feb. 27, 1964, the radio station was bombed.

Nobody was injured, and there was only minor damage to the transmitter.

The station was back on the air the next day.

For about a week, Potts Jr. and his sister had all-day police escorts with them at the bus stop, on the school bus and in the classroom. “I admire him,� Potts said of his father. “It was a courageous stand he took.�

At the time, Potts said, his parents shielded their children from much of the ugliness of racism. “I don’t remember it being as divisive as what we hear now,� he said.

He said his father didn’t espouse racist ideas, but that he didn’t really challenge friends who did.

Years later, Potts remembers that the Revs. N.Q. Reynolds and John Nettles, along with Potts Sr., Hoyt Howell, father of former Anniston Mayor Chip Howell, and others formed the biracial COUL, the

Committee on Unified Leadership.

To complement that effort, Potts Sr. started keeping WDNG airwaves open to callers 24 hours a day so people could call in and vent.

The agent of change over the years, Potts said, became a matter of people of both races communicating and participating in things together. “Church, YMCA, schools ‌,â€? he said. “There are not so many mysteries, not so many myths, not so many questions, not so many fears. Those things got replaced by humor and discourse.â€?

Potts said he has mixed emotions about the bus burning – not about whether it was right or wrong, but about how much it should define the city of Anniston in those days. “It was an awful image, but it was the action of just such a few people,� he said. “We need to do what we can to work toward other things we can be known for, and we have.�

Anthony Cook is managing editor of the Star. Contact him at 256-235-3558.

The secret of freedom is courage.

-thucydides

We remain grateful to those who have and continue to pave the road to freedom for the past fifty years.

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Page 20 Wednesday, May 11, 2011

the freedom rides at annistonstar.com • Online slideshow of 66 photographs from the attack on the bus

The Anniston Star

the ride

• More than 1,000 pages of documents from the FBI investigation

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Remembering the journey

A son of Piedmont continued the Rides

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On May 14, 1961, as the Greyhound bus with the first of the Freedom Riders was burning on the side of the highway outside of Anniston, Bill Harbour and his friends were elsewhere, celebrating with a picnic. They had just integrated Nashville’s lunch counters and movie theaters.

Harbour, a native of Piedmont, was a student at Tennessee State University and a member of the Student Central Committee of the Nashville Christian Leaderharbour ship Council.

When it became clear that the first wave of Freedom Riders could not continue, the students in Nashville took up the gauntlet. Three days later, Harbour was on another bus headed toward Birmingham with nine other battle-hardened students, all trained in non-violent demonstration techniques.

“We felt that if we let the violence stop the Freedom Ride, then anything else we’d do, they could use violence to try to stop us,” recalled Harbour. Aware of the dangers ahead, they all wrote last-minute wills to their families and friends.

Harbour grew up in Piedmont, the son of a cotton mill worker. His father also owned the only black barbershop in town, where a young Harbour shined shoes and learned to cut hair.

His mother worked in the kitchens of whites in town. She and her husband taught their eight children to “do what was right,” Harbour said.

“Before the Freedom Rides, here in the South, black people knew their own place,” Harbour said. “It was not that black people didn’t want something better, but they knew that if they started doing something that was out of the ordinary, they would cause trouble.”

Harbour bucked his father’s wish for him to take over the barbershop and instead applied in 1960 to Jacksonville State University, where he was denied admission.

That was a turning point. “We had a college right there, 11 miles from home, and he had to go to Nashville,” recalled his younger brother, Jerry Harbour. “They didn’t have any blacks at JSU in 1960.”

Special to the Star

Bill Harbour was arrested in Jackson, Miss., in 1961. He was one of more than 300 Freedom Riders sentenced to the state penitentiary.

Harbour’s Freedom Ride ended in Parchman state penitentiary in Mississippi, where he and hundreds of other riders were sent after being arrested at the bus station in Jackson, Miss. Harbour spent 30 days in the prison farm.

His mother asked him to stay away from Piedmont until things calmed down.

He stayed away for five years. When he returned, he found proud parents who were living in a changing world.

Harbour spent a career working as a civilian employee for the U.S. Army, and now has a scholarship named after him at Tennessee State. He’s retired and living in Atlanta.

Earlier this month, Harbour was one of 178 former Freedom Riders reunited on The Oprah Winfrey Show. He often talks with students, warning them that the ride is far from over.

“Every year when my scholarship goes out, we have very few young black men applying for it,” he said. Last year, 22 students applied. Only two were black.

“We still have a lot of work to do.”

Eddie Burkhalter is news director for the Piedmont Journal.

The Anniston Star

Wednesday, May 11, 2011 Page 21

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Remembering the journey

The girl who helped when few others would

By Anthony Cook acook@annistonstar.com

You might not know Janie McKinney, a 62-year-old communications specialist at UCLA. But, as 12-year-old Janie Forsyth, she became part of local civil rights lore by committing a simple act of kindness.

She took water to the victims of the 1961 Freedom Riders bus burning in Anniston.

“I wanted to know what was going on, and when I heard people suffering, I couldn’t stand it,” she said. “I’d been saved, and I believed in the idea of the Good Samaritan. You are your brother’s keeper.”

Ku Klux Klan members had attacked the bus at the station in downtown Anniston, but the driver pulled away on a slashed tire. When the bus couldn’t travel any further, the driver was forced to stop

just outside of town — at the Forsyth and Son Grocery store owned by Janie’s father.

There, Klan members firebombed the bus; riders escaped from the bus to keep from being burned alive.

McKinney remembers being angry that her neighbors wouldn’t help her minister to the victims.

“They were crawling on my front yard, throwing up and begging for mercy,” she said. “Not helping them was more than I could take.”

McKinney said she was driven by the words of Jesus in what has long been her favorite Bible verse, “… Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40).

McKinney said Mother’s Day 1961 set a course for the rest of her life. “Going against my community at such a young age put me on an outward path. I didn’t feel like I belonged, like I fit in,” she said.

“I believe I was headed on a course out of Anniston anyway, and that sealed it.”

While race relations have improved, McKinney said it’s not enough. “It’s still us and them. I think it’s arrogant of whites to think they can truly understand the depths of the pain blacks went through to get here. This country was built on their backs.”

McKinney is returning to Anniston for this week’s events. Asked what she’d say to residents on this 50th anniversary of the bus burning, she paused in thought before offering this: “When you get the opportunity to do the right thing against great odds, you have to do it. If you don’t, it will diminish you as a person. On the other hand, if you do it, you can know that you passed at least one hard test, and it helps define you as a stronger person.”

Anthony Cook is managing editor of the Star. Contact him at 256-235-3558.

Special to The Star

Janie Forsyth McKinney delivered water to the victims of the 1961 bus burning.

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The Anniston Star

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Photo of Joseph Giri’s bus mural on Gurnee Avenue by Stephen Gross/The Anniston Star

• Online slideshow of 66 photographs from the attack on the bus • More than 1,000 pages of documents from the FBI investigation • Complete coverage of the week’s anniversary events • Personal essay by Gary Sprayberry, historian and Anniston native • Hungry for History: Anniston High class could be model for civil rights curriculum

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the day in photos Joseph Postiglione photographed the attack on the bus for the Anniston Star. The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute has organized “Courage Under Fire,” an exhibit of Postiglione’s photos.

It will be on display at the Public Library of Anniston-Calhoun County, Saturday through July 15. An online slideshow of 66 photographs, including two recently discovered in the newspaper archives, can be viewed at AnnistonStar.com.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011 Page 23

The Anniston Star

Page 24 Wednesday, May 11, 2011

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