The Freedom Riders National Monument is a United States National Monument in

Anniston, Alabama Anniston is the county seat of Calhoun County in Alabama and is one of two urban centers/principal cities of and included in the Anniston-Oxford Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city was 23,106. Acc ...

established by President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

in January 2017 to preserve and commemorate the

Freedom Riders Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions '' Morgan v. Virginia ...

during the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the United ...

. The monument is administered by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational proper ...

. The Freedom Riders National Monument is one of three National Monuments that was designated by presidential proclamation of President Obama on January 12, 2017. The second was the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument and the third, the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park, was re-designated as a National Historical Park on March 12, 2019.Melanie Eversley
Obama designates 3 civil rights sites as national monuments
''USA Today'' (January 12, 2017).

Sites

The Freedom Riders National Monument comprises two locations, one in downtown Anniston itself and the other outside town.

Greyhound Bus Station

The first site designated as part of the national monument is the former Greyhound bus depot at 1031 Gurnee Avenue in Anniston, where, on May 14, 1961, a mob attacked an integrated group of white and black Freedom Riders who demanded an end to

racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Intern ...

in interstate busing. The mob slashed the bus's tires, threw rocks, broke the bus's windows, and pursued the bus after it pulled away from the depot.Freedom Riders National Monument

The Conservation Fund The Conservation Fund is a U.S. nonprofit organization with a dual charter to pursue environmental preservation and economic development. From 2008–2018, it has placed more than 500,000 acres under conservation management through a program wh ...

(last accessed April 28, 2017). Today the wall of the building adjacent to the former depot features a mural and educational panels describing the incident; a similar mural has been installed adjacent to the former Trailways station where the other Freedom Riders arrived in 1961. The former Greyhound station was later owned by the City of Anniston prior to its donation to the United States government. It is one of nine sites that are part of the Anniston Civil Rights and Heritage Trail, and is commemorated with a historic marker, erected in 2016. The National Park Service, in conjunction with the city of Anniston, has announced plans to develop the building and open it to the public, but as of May 2017 it was closed to visitors.

Site of bus burning

The second site incorporated into the new national monument is that of the bus burning, located outside of Anniston along Old Birmingham Highway/ State Route 202 some away from the Greyhound station. It was at this spot that the bus broke down because of its flat tires. The segregationist mob, which had followed it from the bus depot, continued its assault, throwing "a bundle of flaming rags into the bus that exploded seconds later" which set the vehicle ablaze. The mob attacked the passengers as they tried to flee. Freelance photographer Joseph "Little Joe" Postiglione photographed the bus as it burned; the resulting image has become an icon of the civil rights movement. An Alabama Historical Marker, erected in 2007 under the auspices of the Theta Tau chapter of

Omega Psi Phi Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. () is a historically African-American fraternity. The fraternity was founded on November 17, 1911, by three Howard University juniors Edgar Amos Love, Oscar James Cooper and Frank Coleman, and their faculty ad ...

fraternity, marks the site of the bus burning. It was announced in 2010 that five acres of land surrounding the site of the bus burning had been donated to Calhoun County for the development of a memorial park; initial plans called for a landscaped walkway, with interpretive plaques to be erected at the site. Possible future features include a statue of Hank Thomas, a survivor of the incident, being given water by nearby resident Janie Forsythe. Since designation of the national monument, the National Park Service, Calhoun County, and the Freedom Riders Memorial Committee have begun working together to develop a plan for interpreting the site;

Alabama Power Alabama Power Company, headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, is a company in the southern United States that provides electricity service to 1.4 million customers in the southern two-thirds of Alabama. It also operates appliance stores. It is one ...

provided money for the effort in 2015. A sign denoting the future presence of the park was erected in 2012. Soon after it was placed at the site it was vandalized, but repairs were quickly made. The site of the burning is today surrounded by private residences.

History of the monument

Designation of the national monument followed a visit by Interior Secretary

Sally Jewell Sarah Margaret "Sally" Roffey Jewell (born February 21, 1956) is a British-American businessperson who served as the 51st United States secretary of the interior in the Obama administration from 2013 to 2017. Jewell was born in London and mo ...

and

Director

Jonathan Jarvis Jonathan B. Jarvis (born June 26, 1953) served as the 18th Director of the United States National Park Service, confirmed by the United States Senate on September 25, 2009, and serving until his retirement on January 3, 2017. Early life and educat ...

to the site in October 2016.Ben Cunningham
The Anniston Greyhound terminal: A building's route through time
''Anniston Star'' (October 24, 2016). The designation of the National Monument was hailed by local leaders in Anniston and Calhoun County,Freedom Riders National Monument Celebration Set for May 13: Interim Visitor Center now open at Anniston City
(press release), National Park Service. who had actively campaigned for the monument's creation. Others who supported its establishment included Senator

Richard Shelby Richard Craig Shelby (born May 6, 1934) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Alabama. First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986 as a Democrat who later switched to the Republican Party in 1994, he ...

; Representative Mike Rogers, who had introduced a bill to designate Freedom Riders National Historical Park in July 2016; and governor Robert J. Bentley. A dedication ceremony took place on May 13, 2017, in downtown Anniston, on the day before the 56th anniversary of the incident; some members of the audience had traveled from as far away as

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. Former Freedom Rider Hank Thomas, the last living survivor of the bus-burning incident, delivered a speech. An interim visitor center, including a station where visitors may procure a National Parks passport stamp, has been established in the reception area of Anniston City Hall. In 2017, the National Park Service sought input from the public on planning and interpreting the National Monument. Federal and local officials began drafting formal plans for its management late in 2017. In March 2018, the Anniston City Council commissioned

Jacksonville State University Jacksonville State University (JSU) is a public university in Jacksonville, Alabama. Founded in 1883, Jacksonville State offers programs of study in six academic schools leading to bachelor's, master's, education specialist, and doctorate degre ...

to conduct an economic impact study for the monument. The Freedom Riders National Monument is a feature landmark of the United States Civil Rights Trail.

References

External links