Greyhound Bus Station

Description

The Greyhound Bus Station at 210 South Court Street in Montgomery, Alabama, was the site of a violent attack on participants in the 1961 Freedom Ride during the Civil Rights Movement. The May 1961 assaults, carried out by a mob of white protesters who confronted the civil rights activists, "shocked the nation and led the Kennedy Administration to side with civil rights protesters for the first time."The property is no longer used as a bus station, but the building was saved from demolition and its facade has been restored. The site was leased by the Alabama Historical Commission and a historical marker was located in front of the building. In 2011, a museum was opened inside the building, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The museum won a national preservation award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 2012.Freedom Ride to MontgomeryThe first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C. on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17. The black and white Freedom Riders were trying to compel the U.S. government to enforce U.S. Supreme Court decisions outlawing segregated transportation, and wanted to end the discriminatory practice of allocating seating on the buses and bus stations with a preference for whites. Organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the plan was to have mixed pairs of riders sit side by side. The first ride consisted of two buses, one from Greyhound and one from Trailways, and the plans included a final leg starting in Atlanta, Georgia, and stopping in the state of Alabama in Anniston, Birmingham, and Montgomery before ending in New Orleans.