May 14, 1961: A busload of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) freedom riders was attacked by an angry mob led by local KKK leaders in Anniston, Alabama. One of the attackers laid down on the road in front of the bus to make sure the bus would not leave before the attack was finished. Police arrived after about twenty minutes of the mob attacking the freedom riders and their bus but did not make arrests. After police partially escorted the bus out of the town center, the mob followed and escalated its violence when it caught up to the travelers. Attackers tossed flaming rags into the bus and it was set ablaze. Thankfully, the freedom riders all successfully escaped from the burning vehicle. As historian Raymond Arsenault writes, “With the apparent connivance of law enforcement officials, the organized defenders of white supremacy in Alabama had decided to smash the Freedom Ride with violence, in effect announcing to the world that they had no intention of letting the law, the U.S. Constitution, or anything else interfere with the preservation of racial segregation in their state.”
Citations: Raymond Arsenault, Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 143-145, https://archive.org/details/freedomriders1960000arse; Carol M. Highsmith, “The renovated Greyhound bus station in downtown Jackson was the site of 1961 Freedom Rides, where activists protested segregated bus stations. It now (2017) contains an architect's office,” photograph (Jackson, MS, November 5, 2017), https://lccn.loc.gov/2017883563.
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