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50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides
Content related to the burning of the Freedom Riders bus in Anniston on May 14, 1961.
Conversations about the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides (Sunday morning update includes new news articles from appearance in Montgomery)
News stories and social media buzz surrounding the marking of this historic civil rights event.
May 15, 2011 |  0 comments | 24 24 recommendations | email to a friend
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Yvonne Thomas, left, (wife of Hank Thomas), Hank Thomas (original Freedom Rider on the Anniston bus that burned), William Harbour (original Freedom Rider) and Janie Forsyth McKinney (she helped the Freedom Riders as a young girl when the bus burned in Anniston) hold hands as a crowd sings ‘We shall Overcome’ Wednesday at the Public Library of Anniston-Calhoun County.
A prayer for reconciliation: Remembering the Freedom Riders
Rev. Alberta McCrory, the mayor of Hobson City, delivered this invocation Wednesday night at a reception honoring the Freedom Riders, a group of civil rights heroes who traveled to the South on buses to challenge Jim Crow segregation laws.
May 14, 2011 |  0 comments | 17 17 recommendations | email to a friend
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Spirit of Anniston Director Betsy Bean speaks to a crowd gathered for the bus painting on Gurnee Avenue Thursday morning. (Anniston Star photo by Stephen Gross)
Anniston bus murals unveiled
“We talk about Martin Luther King Day, we do service activities, but I’m not sure we have the full understanding of what happened here,” said Rachael DeMarce, a member of the Blackfeet tribe born and raised on the Blackfeet reservation in Montana. (Editor's note: This article is a somewhat longer version of the one that appears in the March 13 print edition of The Star.)
May 13, 2011 |  0 comments | 21 21 recommendations | email to a friend
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The group photo, taken at a downtown Anniston restaurant, shows students who are retracing the route of the original Freedom Riders. In the other photo, Hank Thomas, in white shirt, hugs Richard Couch on Wednesday at the Public Library of Anniston-Calhoun County. Thomas was an original Freedom Rider. Couch’s father was in the mob that burned the bus in 1961. (Anniston Star photos by Bill Wilson)
Reconciliation, understanding mark Freedom Riders' return to Anniston
The students who attended the ceremony at the library were chosen from hundreds of students who applied for the opportunity to retrace the steps of the 1961 Freedom Rides, and come face to face with history.
May 12, 2011 |  0 comments | 30 30 recommendations | email to a friend
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Portrait of Richard Couch, who is the son of Jerome Couch. Jerome Couch was one of the few people who were actually convicted of a crime in the Freedom Riders bus burning.
Bus burner's son takes a different path
Richard Couch is in the same line of work as Atticus Finch. It's a world away from the path chosen by his father, who did a year's probation for his role in the burning of the Freedom Riders bus.
May 11, 2011 |  1 comments | 60 60 recommendations | email to a friend
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Photo: Joe Postiglione/Courtesy of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
The day that would change Anniston’s place in history began like any other small-town Sunday
Sunrise, 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.
May 11, 2011 |  1 comments | 23 23 recommendations | email to a friend
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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. Photo: Associated Press
A Rider wishes for reconciliation
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.
May 11, 2011 |  0 comments | 19 19 recommendations | email to a friend
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A son of Piedmont continued the Rides
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.
May 11, 2011 |  0 comments | 16 16 recommendations | email to a friend
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Janie Forsyth McKinney delivered water to the victims of the 1961 bus burning. Photo: Special to The Star
The girl who helped when few others would
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.
May 11, 2011 |  0 comments | 27 27 recommendations | email to a friend
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Recalling a father’s ‘courageous stand’
Tom Potts Jr. is the owner of Potts Marketing Group, a local public relations/marketing agency. He’s the spokesman for the Foothills Community Partnership, the entity in charge of industrial lead cleanup for the area.
May 11, 2011 |  0 comments | 18 18 recommendations | email to a friend
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Related Letters and Editorials
A sharper focus: The power of an iconic image to show what’s there — and what’s not
The still photo is the platform upon which an entire episode of human history can be transported. It must be taken in focus, with the scene properly composed, and at the precise moment that captures the enormity of the event.
May 15, 2011 |  4 comments | 16 16 recommendations | email to a friend
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Accepting responsibility in Anniston
Jewish people all over the world recently remembered the Exodus of our ancestors from slavery in Egypt. Central to this major Jewish Holy Season is a ceremony in the home in which the family elder narrates the story of the Exodus and enjoins each one present to remember it as if he or she were personally liberated.
May 13, 2011 |  3 comments | 14 14 recommendations | email to a friend
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A story and its audience: Honor city’s civil-rights history
Anniston is deserving of its spot on Alabama’s Civil Rights Trail, though its status may never equal that of Birmingham and Montgomery. The reasons are obvious — from Bull Connor to Rosa Parks, from Kelly Ingram Park to Martin Luther King Jr.
May 12, 2011 |  0 comments | 14 14 recommendations | email to a friend
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Freedom Rider Hank Thomas: Anniston’s place in my life
When I boarded the Greyhound bus in Washington, D.C., May 4, 1961, headed south, I was in search of my American dream — that elusive dream, the dream that the Declaration of Independence’s reference to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” included me, a coming-of-age black man.
May 12, 2011 |  0 comments | 26 26 recommendations | email to a friend
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H. Brandt Ayers: Redemption — How the shock of the bus burning became a spur to action
Yes, on Mothers Day 1961 a mob of white thugs burned a Freedom Riders bus and beat some of its occupants on the outskirts of Anniston, but that isn’t the whole story.
May 11, 2011 |  0 comments | 19 19 recommendations | email to a friend
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50 years down the road: Recalling Freedom Rides is a chance to measure how far we’ve come
Fifty years separates modern-day Anniston from the Freedom Riders’ visit on Mother’s Day 1961. Those buses, one burned, one spared, left an indelible, if not unfair, image of the city – especially for those not here, for those who did not see it firsthand.
May 10, 2011 |  2 comments | 12 12 recommendations | email to a friend
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Anniston and the burning bus: We are obligated to confront our past, no matter how ugly it may be
The 1961 Freedom Ride attack lays like an open wound in Anniston’s history, stubbornly refusing to heal, impossible to ignore. It represented a dividing line between the past and future. It exposed the community to national and international condemnation. It tarnished the Model City image that civic leaders had been cultivating since the 19th century. It remains Anniston’s most shameful and painful incident.
May 08, 2011 |  5 comments | 30 30 recommendations | email to a friend
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Related Documents


More than 1,000 pages from the FBI investigation into the attack on the Freedom Riders bus outside Anniston on May 14, 1961. The files were requested by the Anniston Star. Many names have been redacted by the FBI. Click the images to view a full size version of the documents.
The Ride: Special Section


Read the full special section commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Ride. Click the image to view a full version of the document.

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On May 14, 1961, Joe Postiglione took photos of the attack on the Freedom Riders bus for publication in The Anniston Star. Sixty-four photos were given to the FBI as evidence, along with descriptions provided by Postiglione. Photos 1-17 were taken at the Greyhound Bus Station between 8 a.m. and 1:10 p.m. Photos 18-64 were taken at Forsyth's Grocery, west of Anniston on State Highway 202, between 1:30 and 2:10 p.m. These images were provided by the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. The final two photos were recently discovered in the Anniston Star photo archives.