The Reality

The Reality. Segregation by Design. This was once a doorway. The small holes above the tiled-up opening are from a sign that read "Colored Entrance.". In 1961, if you were “colored," you entered through this opening. You walked along the bus platform to a "colored" waiting room at the back of the station with its own "colored” restrooms, a small "colored" lunch counter and a "colored" ticket window. , "White" passengers walked through the station's main doorway into a spacious waiting room with a ticket counter, restrooms and a lunch counter, all reserved for "white" people only., At the time, Alabama and Montgomery laws required rigid separation of the races. If you used the wrong door, ticket counter or restaurant, you could be arrested., The Protest , At 10:23 a.m. on Saturday, May 20, the Freedom Riders stepped off a bus here. They were male and female, black and white. All 20 were college students. Some were studying to be ministers. All were unarmed. They were trained to respond to hatred with love, to violence with forgiveness. , As they walked toward the national reporters on the bus platform, the scene was eerily quiet. Suddenly, angry white men, women and children began pouring out of cars and burst from behind nearby buildings. They had weapons and meant to use them to resist this symbolic effort to end segregation. , Montgomery public safety commissioner L.B. Sullivan and acting police chief Marvin Stanley had assured Alabama's governor and the FBI that they would protect the students.Alabama Governor John Patterson had made the same promise to President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy. But the police were nowhere to be found. , You could see baseball bats; you could see ropes; you could see pieces of chain. You knew why they were there , ... I asked God to forgive them for whatever they might do. , Freedom Rider Jim Zwerg, The Attack , First the mob attacked reporters and smashed their cameras. Then they set upon the bus riders. John Lewis, the student leader, shouted, “Stand together. Don't run. Just stand together!" In a moment the rioters were upon them. , Several of the male students jumped over a retaining wall and ran into the federal building next door. Lewis, William Barbee and Jim Zwerg were trapped on the bus station platform and beaten unconscious. Zwerg, a white man, attracted the most violent attacks. “They couldn't believe that there was a white man who would help us," Freedom Rider Fred Leonard said later. , The seven women Freedom Riders managed to find a black-owned taxi. But the frightened driver would only take the five who were black. When federal representative John Seigenthaler tried to rescue the two stranded white women, a rioter knocked him unconscious with a metal pipe. , Oh, there are fists punching ... There are no cops. It's terrible...There's not a cop in sight...It's awful. , John Doar to Burke Marshall, both U.S. Justice Department officials, The Police , Although he had no jurisdiction inside the city limits, state public safety director Floyd Mann waded into the mob. He fired his gun into the air and told the men beating and kicking the unconscious student William Barbee, "I'll shoot the next man who hits him. Stand back. There'll be no killing here today" , Fifteen minutes after the riot began, several Montgomery police strolled into the bus station. By then most of the students had escaped or were unconscious. When it was clear the police had no intention of arresting the rioters, the mob grew to more than a thousand, burning suitcases and attacking black bystanders. , Over an hour after the bus arrived, state troopers and mounted sheriff's deputies responded to calls for help from the scene. Only then did Montgomery police arrive in force, scattering the unruly mob, which continued to riot on nearby streets. , We have no intention of standing guard for a bunch of trouble-makers coming into our city making trouble. , Montgomery commissioner of public safety L.B. Sullivan, I don't think anybody can say the students caused the violence...the people who committed violence are responsible for their own actions. , Freedom Rides Coordinator Diane Nash, The Reaction , The President and U.S. Attorney General were enraged by the attack on their personal representative John Seigenthaler and the failure of state and local officials to keep the peace. With longtime supporter Governor John Patterson refusing to accept his calls, President Kennedy reluctantly ordered 400 federal marshals to Montgomery., Shocked by the deliberate inaction of city police, Montgomery businessman Winton "Red" Blount called white business leaders together and pushed for formal disapproval of the violence. Most of the leaders claimed the students had provoked it; in the end Blount negotiated a resolution condemning both sides., Eighty-seven of the approximately one hundred businessmen signed. Meanwhile, many of the scattered Freedom Riders made their way to the home of Montgomery civil rights leader Reverend Solomon Seay, Sr., The leaders preach “nonviolence."...Violence, however, has been the result. U.S. News and World Report, June 5, 1961, The First Baptist Church , On Sunday, May 21, the black community responded with an evening rally at Reverend Ralph Abernathy's First Baptist Church on North Ripley Street. James Farmer, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and Reverend Wyatt Tee Walker had raced to Montgomery to support the students. Fearing arrest, several Freedom Riders had taken refuge in the church. , Outside the church, a small group of white men grew into a rock-throwing, car-burning mob of 3,000. Trapped inside, 1,500 men, women and children sang hymns and freedom songs. By 10 p.m. federal marshals reported they were losing control as the mob charged the church. , Just when President Kennedy resolved to call in U.S. Army soldiers from Fort Benning, Georgia, Governor Patterson declared martial law and sent Alabama National Guard troops to the church. By midnight the area was secured, and near dawn the people inside the church were safely evacuated. , I want to hear everybody sing and mean every word of it. , Reverend Solomon Seay, Sr., leading "Love Lifted Me" , The Controversy , On Monday, May 22, the Freedom Riders gathered at Richard Harris's South Jackson Street home to debate the future of the Freedom Rides. Joining the discussion were Lawson, King and reinforcements from the Nashville Movement. , U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy asked for a cooling-off period, while more Montgomery civic groups spoke out against mob violence and police inaction. The strongest criticism of Montgomery officials came from Montgomery Advertiser editor Grover Hall. , On Wednesday, May 24, the Freedom Rides resumed, heading for Jackson, Mississippi. Federal and state officials in Alabama and Mississippi had agreed the Riders would be arrested but protected from mob violence. As the first bus left Montgomery, reports came of more Freedom Riders on the way. , On Monday, May 29, Attorney General Kennedy petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission to “declare unequivocally by regulation that a Negro passenger is free to travel the length and breadth of this country in the same manner as any other passenger" , Stop Them , President John F. Kennedy, about the Freedom Riders, May 22, 1961, The Victory , During the summer and fall, several hundred more Freedom Riders took up the cause, many spending time in Mississippi's jails. On November 1, 1961, sweeping new Interstate Commerce Commission regulations went into effect. The Freedom Riders had won an unqualified national victory. , No longer did African-Americans have to sit separately or use separate waiting and restaurants. Equally significant, the Kennedy administration had forcefully sided with the protesters. Washington had sent federal marshals to protect the Riders in Montgomery and had enforced existing laws and court decisions against racial discrimination., The Freedom Rides were a watershed event, “a psychological turning point in our whole struggle" in the words of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The students had become a powerful force for civil rights. , They were trained, tested and ready for the voting rights struggles in Mississippi and Alabama. , This building stands as a testament to 438 ordinary people who did an extraordinary thing. They risked their lives and their freedom to bring justice to our nation.