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Great Wall Institute: The Process of the Great Wall of Los Angeles

Freedom Rides

The Freedom Rides of 1961 led to the desegregation of bus and train facilities and stations. Inspired by the first freedom rides known as the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947, James Farmer, the head of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), announced a plan to target the facilities that interstate travelers used. This included restrooms, waiting rooms, the Greyhound and other stations below the Mason/Dixon line. The first Freedom Ride departed on May 4th, 1961 from Washington, D.C. headed to Alabama and included seven Black and six white youth. The rides in Alabama went from Anniston to Birmingham. In those two cities the riders were met with brutal violence from white resistors and KKK members; exposing a national audience to the vitriolic racism faced by Black Americans.

Freedom Riders arrived in Anniston on Sunday May 14th to an angry white crowd which became an incredibly violent scene. The attackers threw rocks and bricks at the bus, slashed the tires, and threw a firearm into the bus through a broken window. As the bus began to burn, the attackers blocked the door as they intended to burn the Freedom Riders alive. State troopers called in forced the crowd to move so that the riders could escape the burning bus. The riders fleeing for safety continued to be attacked with baseball bats as they exited the bus.

The rides continued on to Birmingham where Police Commissioner Eugene Bull Conner allowed violence to erupt. Upon their arrival, the Riders were attacked. Later in 1963, during Dr. Kings “Why We Can't Wait” Campaign, Bull Connor once again ordered violence when he infamously directed firemen to use their hoses on protestors and for police officers to pursue them with dogs, turning a peaceful protest into violence. Conner’s actions during both the Freedom Rides and the Why We Cant Wait campaign embarrassed the Kennedy Administration who urged restraint and later ordered Connor to vacate the city commissioners office. Following Birmingham, the Riders went on to Montgomery then Jackson, Mississippi where they were arrested for breaching peace. The extent of violence shocked many Americans.

On September 22, 1961, segregation of bus and train stations and facilities was banned by the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission. The Great Wall of LA mural specifically depicts the Freedom Riders arrival in Anniston and features riders Joan Mullholland, Catherine Burks-Brooks, Jean Thompson, Alex Weiss, Robert and Helen Singleton, Lula Mae White, and Hank Thomas on the back bus while movement leaders Kwame Ture (Stokley Carmichael), James Farmer, and John Lewis are in the front bus.

Sources:
“Connor, Theophilus Eugene ‘Bull.’” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, kinginstitute.stanford.edu/connor-theophilus-eugene-bull. Accessed 28 Sept. 2023.
Holmes, Marian Smith. “The Freedom Riders, Then and Now.” Smithsonian.Com, Smithsonian Institution, 1 Feb. 2009, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-freedom-riders-then-and-now-45351758/.
Blum, Paul Von, and Frank Reynoso. Civil Rights for Beginners. For Beginners, 2016.

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When traveling by air, rail or bus across country on business or pleasure, I always recall the summer of 1961, when the Rides made interstate travel the democratic activity we take for granted. Racial segregation on trains or in bus stations is unthinkable today. But I remember when it was the law or custom in many places. I was raised in New Orleans, and learned early on what segregated life was like as a Negro. And I remember the Freedom Rides. In August 1961, I was one of 11 men and women who boarded a train from Los Angeles to Mississippi. We Freedom Riders — some 400 people across the U.S. — bore witness to our conviction that segregation was illegal. We were disciplined, organized and racially mixed. We rode trains, buses and planes; we sought service at dining facilities, restrooms and waiting rooms. We expected to be incarcerated and knew there could be violence directed against us. But we were committed.
On Sunday, May 14, 1961—Mother's Day—scores of angry white people blocked a Greyhound bus carrying black and white passengers through rural Alabama. The attackers pelted the vehicle with rocks and bricks, slashed tires, smashed windows with pipes and axes and lobbed a firebomb through a broken window. As smoke and flames filled the bus, the mob barricaded the door. "Burn them alive," somebody cried out. "Fry the goddamn niggers." An exploding fuel tank and warning shots from arriving state troopers forced the rabble back and allowed the riders to escape the inferno. Even then some were pummeled with baseball bats as they fled. A few hours later, black and white passengers on a Trailways bus were beaten bloody after they entered whites-only waiting rooms and restaurants at bus terminals in Birmingham and Anniston, Alabama.