On this day in 1961

MAY 14, 1961

On this Mother’s Day, a group of Freedom Riders traveling by bus from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans arrived in Anniston, Alabama. A mob of white men led by a Klansman attacked the bus with baseball bats and iron pipes. They also slashed the tires. 

After the attack ended, the hobbled bus pulled over, the mob hurled a firebomb into the bus, and someone cried out, “Burn them alive.” The riders escaped as the bus burst into flames, only to be beaten with pipes by the mob. 

The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth organized several cars of Black citizens to rescue the injured Freedom Riders. The photograph of the Greyhound bus engulfed in flames, the black smoke filling the sky became an unforgettable image of the civil rights movement.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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