Trailways Bus Station

Trailways Bus Station. Destination. Built in the 1940S, 4th Ave. N. and 19th St. N. , On Mother's Day in 1961, the Freedom Riders, Black and White members of the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE), arrived at Birmingham's Trailways bus station. Though integrated interstate travel was federal law, Deep South states refused to enforce it. When the riders arrived, a group of angry Ku Klux Klansmen attacked and viciously beat them. Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, leader of the local civil rights organization, Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR), rescued and protected the riders with the help of his church members at Bethel Baptist, where he was the pastor. A snapshot of the melee by Birmingham Post-Herald photographer Tommy Langston went around the world and embarrassed Birmingham's White leaders. They began a two-year plan to put Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor out of office because he delayed sending policemen to the bus station for 15 minutes. The station was also a target site for protestors during the 1963 Birmingham Campaign., "You have to be prepared to die before you can begin to live." , Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth , on the eve of the 1963 Birmingham Campaign, as quoted by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in his book, "Why We Can't Wait." , Lesson C21: Why do you think Southern states ignored federal civil rights laws?