This Sunday is Mother’s Day. It is a time to honor and remember the nurturing love of our mother or mother figure. But Mother’s Day 1961 went down in history for a much different reason. On May 14 an act of racial terror took place on the outskirts of Anniston, AL. A group of interracial volunteer riders were on a Greyhound Bus as part of a campaign known as the Freedom Rides to test a federal law desegregating intrastate transportation including bus facilities. The law was routinely disregarded throughout the South. Earlier that month, two buses of Freedom Riders, a Greyhound and a Trailways, left Washington, DC planning various stops in the South with the final stop in New Orleans in time to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision of May 17, 1954. Neither bus made it to New Orleans. Both encountered hateful mobs and physical attacks. In Anniston, AL the Greyhound bus was surrounded by a mob that broke some bus windows and slashed the tires. The crippled bus left the station but only made it a few miles outside of town before the tires gave out. The mob followed the bus and gathered around when it stopped. Someone threw a firebomb through a broken window. Flames spread throughout the bus and the gas tank exploded. Miraculously the Freedom Riders managed to get off the bus before it was completely engulfed in flames. People in the mob taunted and threatened the distressed riders. Before anyone could attack them, a state trooper arrived on the scene and fired his pistol to disperse the crowd. The photo of the burning bus and the story of the attack became national news that touched the conscience of the nation. Far from ending the Freedom Rides, the Mother’s Day attack outside Anniston inspired others to continue the campaign until the law desegregating intrastate transportation was finally enforced by federal authorities in November.
In the video posted below, Freedom Rider Hank Thomas recalls that fateful Mother’s Day of 1961. In his opening words, he describes the mob that attacked the bus as “good Christians” many of whom had just come from church to see the Freedom Riders get killed. Throughout the modern Civil Rights Movement, many of the most hateful and vicious opponents of racial justice identified themselves as “good Christians.” This seems unbelievable until we realize that White Christian Nationalism is a threat to racial justice in our time in general and this year in particular. It takes different forms today ranging from the infamous January 6 attack on the Capitol to voter suppression to hateful rhetoric targeting migrants. As people of faith, it is essential to call out these distortions of Christianity and uphold the value and dignity of all people as Jesus did.