On the "Seven Days of 1961" podcast, activists, many of whom were teenagers, share how they risked everything to challenge white supremacy.
On episode four: The Freedom Ride movement almost ended in Alabama on May 14, 1961, when Hank Thomas and six other Riders nearly died on a bus set on fire in rural Alabama, where the Ku Klux Klan reigned.
Hank Thomas shares the story of how the Riders' journey descended into hours of vicious violence in Alabama, where federal law enforcement knowingly allowed local police to collaborate with the Ku Klux Klan.
The Mother’s Day bloodshed galvanized a movement. After Hank Thomas and other Freedom Riders barely escaped death, new Riders poured into the South for months, risking everything to force the country to face the hateful actions upholding unlawful, racist practices.
The “Seven Days of 1961” podcast features stories of resistance, told by the people who lived it. Learn more about the heroic civil rights activists and the danger they faced at 7daysof1961.usatoday.com.
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‘You could be killed any minute’: Civil rights veterans share horrors of battling white supremacy
Hit play on the podcast player above and read along with the transcript below.
Hank Thomas:
When the bus started to burn we all knew that if we got off the bus we'd probably be killed. I made a decision whether I'm going to be beaten to death or whether I'm going to die on that burning bus.
Nathalie Boyd:
On May 14th, 1961 a Greyhound bus carrying seven Freedom Riders pulled into Anniston, Alabama and was immediately swarmed by angry white supremacists. The Freedom Ride movement to integrate travel stations nearly ended there. Instead, waves of new riders poured into the south for months, risking everything to force the country to face the hateful actions that upheld unlawful racist Jim Crow practices.
Nathalie Boyd:
I'm Nathalie Boyd, a podcast producer with USA Today. Hank Thomas was only 19 when he became one of the original 13 Freedom Riders that traveled from Washington, DC, to New Orleans. Hank sat down with us and got a little emotional as he relived the terrifying events of that day. This is the Seven Days of 1961 podcast. Hear history from the people who made it.
Hank Thomas:
Philosophically I'm not a non-violent person and one of the things that protected me while I was on the picket line or even sitting in, I'd always have the meanest look on my face, and I think most of the white guys were obviously smaller than myself and if they had any particular thought about beating up on somebody it wasn't going to be me, because I did not look like I was going to be an easy target.
Nathalie Boyd:
Supreme Court rulings in 1946 and 1960 outlawed segregated bus seating and facilities, but Jim Crow practices still relegated black people to substandard accommodations. The Freedom Riders traveled on two different bus lines, Greyhound and Trailways, to test and document compliance of desegregation throughout the south.
Hank Thomas:
Luckily, as I said, I was never physically attacked until the Anniston situation. Then I was attacked by several people, and of course you had the police there and you had as much to fear from the police, if not more so, than you did the guys in the mob, because obviously the police had the guns.
Hank Thomas:
Dr. King and the rest of them knew that that was a dangerous place, and we were warned and actually asked not to go into Anniston because you're going to get some people killed.
Hank Thomas:
So having escaped, if you will, from Winnsboro, South Carolina, where the police had arrested me, I escaped in time so I knew first hand of what the dangers were. I didn't say anything, but I was hoping let's not do this again.
Hank Thomas:
The rest of them didn't quite understand, but I had just escaped from death, so I knew better.
Nathalie Boyd:
At that stop in Winnsboro, Hank was arrested for entering a whites only area of the bus terminal. An officer late at night pulled him from his jail cell and dropped him off near the bus station, where a white mob was still gathered from earlier in the day.
Nathalie Boyd:
Once out of the cop's car, Hank bolted and happened to be picked up by a black driver nearby. The experience rattled Hank, but he still traveled to rejoin the group in Atlanta.
Hank Thomas:
When we got to Anniston there's this mob there at the bus station.
Nathalie Boyd:
At least 50 white men, many from Alabama's Ku Klux Klan klaverns, surrounded the bus.
Hank Thomas:
The bus driver was afraid, and he had to get off the bus and let them know that, "Listen, I'm just a bus driver, okay? It was my job to drive the bus." I understand why he did that, because he didn't want to be killed either.
Nathalie Boyd:
Hank recalls sitting next to Ed Blankenheim, the 27 year old college student and veteran.
Hank Thomas:
So Ed says, "Okay, we need to go into the station to make our report." I said, "Ed, let's just tell them this station is segregated." "No, we got to get off and be able to document it." I said, "You got to be crazy," and before he could say anything else they started physically attacking the bus.
Hank Thomas:
The windows were being broken and the bus driver, to our credit and his credit maybe, had locked the door when he got off the bus, so those on the outside could not get in, so that saved us. Probably the bus was there maybe a half an hour or so. When the bus finally began to leave the bus station we did not know that the tires had been slashed, and when you look at the tires of a bus today, how thick they are, you can only imagine what it took to slash those tires.
Hank Thomas:
But when the bus started to move out I breathed a sigh of relief, at least it's leaving here now. But the bus could only go maybe 10 or 15 miles per hour, the reason being there were at least two, maybe three, pickups in front of the bus to keep it from moving any faster, and a line of cars behind the bus, and it was just a matter of time before the bus would stop, and there they'd have their chance again.
Hank Thomas:
I don't know whether it was a coincidence that when the bus finally stopped and was disabled it was right in front of a country store. A crowd of people had gathered there. Many of them had just come from church, good Christian people who brought their children with them to watch the Freedom Riders get killed.
Nathalie Boyd:
The irate hoard again attacked the Greyhound bus with bats and tire irons. A white man threw a fire bomb into a broken window and the vicious mob pressed against the door, trapping the passengers inside to burn to death.
Hank Thomas:
When the bus started to burn we all knew that if we got off the bus we'd probably be killed. I made a decision, only 19 years old, whether I'm going to be beaten to death or whether I'm going to die on that burning bus. I know that with all of the smoke that is accumulating on the bus it would be easier for me to die as a result of inhaling the smoke, so that's how I was going to die.
Hank Thomas:
By the time I took a deep breath of that smoke my involuntary muscle took over. I had to get off of that bus. Probably within a few seconds the flames had gotten to the fuel tank of the bus and it blew out the back of the bus. As a result of that the people outside started running, and when they started to run they released the hold they had on the door of the bus. That was the way we got off.
Hank Thomas:
When we got off the bus, the bus was fully inflamed. We could feel it once we got off the bus. Everyone else out there in the mob got as far away from the flames as possible, and when they saw that we were trying to do the same thing they tried to make sure we did not get that far away.
Nathalie Boyd:
Hank was the first to exit the burning bus. He was approached by a white man and felt relieved because he thought he man was concerned for his well-being.
Hank Thomas:
"Are you all right, boy?" To hear a voice concerning my safety, I just nodded my head, and in the next second I was on the ground.
Nathalie Boyd:
The man beat Hank with a bat.
Hank Thomas:
Then I was attacked by several people. Three guys approached me because they saw that the police officer wasn't going to do anything, and I did something that would truly get you killed. I ran to the police officer, grabbed him around the waist and used him as a shield, and in that second he pulled his gun and fired into the air, but between the time he pulled his gun and fired into the air I thought he was going to shoot me and you could see me putting my hands in front of my face.
Hank Thomas:
He fired into the air and he said, "All right, you all have had your fun. That's enough." So that was as close as I came I thought to getting killed.
Nathalie Boyd:
It wasn't the only bloodshed that day. The other group of Freedom Riders on the Trailways bus also met brutal violence in Alabama. Klan members boarded the bus after it first stopped in Anniston and beat three members nearly unconscious. Still nursing injuries, the bus continued on to Birmingham, where another mob awaited them. They were beaten again before escaping into the city.
Nathalie Boyd:
Outside of a country store on the outskirts of Anniston the Freedom Riders with the Greyhound bus received a brave act of kindness. Hank spoke about this moment a few years earlier. Here's that recording.
Hank Thomas:
All of us was in need of water. A little girl, 12 years old, little Janie, was running in and out of her father's store bringing us water, and those adults looked at her with scorn, and I'm told later on that little Janie had trouble staying in that town.
Nathalie Boyd:
The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, a prominent Birmingham minister and civil rights leader, dispatched a convoy to evaluate the Greyhound riders from an Anniston hospital which was under threat from another growing mob. Alabama Governor John Patterson refused to guarantee State protection for the group. Because of threats and a bus driver boycott the Freedom Riders flew to New Orleans rather than continue on the ground.
Nathalie Boyd:
The original riders' perseverance inspired months of activism. Student leaders, including civil rights icon John Lewis, organized teams of people to pour into Alabama and Mississippi within 72 hours of the attacks. By early fall more than 400 people had faced violence and arrest in the fight for freedom there.
Nathalie Boyd:
Under pressure from the Kennedy administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission banned segregated facilities in its jurisdiction effective November 1st. The removal of whites only signs across the south marked a significant widespread victory for the movement.
Nathalie Boyd:
60 years later Hank still has no regrets about that frightful Mother's Day in Anniston, Alabama, but he does get misty eyed when he remembers his deceased fellow riders.
Hank Thomas:
The others on the bus with me, Ed Blankenheim, Howard Bigelow, who was a retired Naval captain, Genevieve Hughes and all of the names that I have called have since passed on. I can't remember their names. I see their faces.
Hank Thomas:
I am so appreciative of every little part of the changes that have occurred in this country, but at the same time I appreciate all of the people who have had a part to play in the changing of this country. The civil rights movement was an integrated movement, where whites who dared to help us suffered tremendously. Not enough is said about them.
Nathalie Boyd:
The Seven Days of 1961 podcast is produced and edited by me, Nathalie Boyd. Melissa Brown reported on this episode and Jasper Colt produced the interview.
Nathalie Boyd:
You can see images of Hank and of the burning bus and you can read Melissa's story to learn more about the Freedom Riders' historic journey at sevendaysof1961.usatoday.com. Thank you for listening.
Nathalie Boyd:
Tell your friends about the podcast. We want more people to hear these personal stories about acts of resistance that ended segregation. Please write us a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps more people find the show. You can tweet us at USA Today.
Nathalie Boyd:
On the next episode you'll hear from a woman who inspired many young activists like herself. After she was expelled for trying to integrate a bus station more than 100 black high school students walked out in protest. That show of support was a rallying cry for more young people to fight for integration and voting rights. That's next time. See you then.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Freedom Riders sought progress. The KKK nearly killed them
