Published: October 7, 2022
The Anniston Greyhound bus depot invites visitors to view their new permanent exhibit called Freedom Riders. The Greyhound depot, located at 1031 Gurnee Ave. in Anniston, will be open to the public Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Freedom Riders had a simple but daring plan: to board buses in small interracial groups to test and challenge segregated facilities in the South. The Freedom Riders endured savage beatings, humiliation, and imprisonment, but ultimately, their brave actions and commitment to nonviolence changed American forever. Freedom Riders explores this little-known chapter in civil rights history and explains how the selfless actions of the Freedom Riders laid the groundwork for some of the most important civil rights legislation in our nation’s history.
Organized by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and PBS’s flagship history series, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, this exhibition combines powerful photography and news coverage of the Rides.
The Freedom Riders exhibit is a companion to the May 2011 PBS broadcast of the AMERICAN EXPERIENCE film Freedom Riders which will also be available to view at the depot.
The Freedom Rides marked a moment of change in the American Civil Rights Movement. Youth leaders involved in the movement charted an activist course through the events of 1961 that went beyond what established civil rights leaders were willing to endorse. The growth and success of this youthful activism propelled the Civil Rights Movement into the pivotal years of the mid-1960s, when leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) worked in collaboration with others including the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to achieve significant victories.
Freedom Riders National Monument encourages visitors to wear masks and practice social distancing. For more information, contact frri_information@nps.gov or call (256) 499-7209.
In 2017, Freedom Riders National Monument (FRRI) was created by presidential proclamation to commemorate the story of the “Freedom Riders.”