Beyond the Burning Bus (by Phil Noble)

I just finished reading Beyond the Burning Bus, Phil Noble's 2003 book about the aftermath of the May 14, 1961 attacks on Freedom Riders aboard Greyhound and Trailways buses traveling through Anniston, Alabama (NewSouth Books).

Many accounts have explained how the violence in Alabama on that Mother's Day was perpetrated to intimidate blacks and others who supported the enforcement of Federal laws that gave blacks equal access to interstate transportation. Noble's book paints an altogether different picture.

I learned of Noble's book from Harvey Jackson's August 2003 review published in the Anniston Star. Harvey's review was the very first "hit" that came up when I'd Googled burning bus anniston.

Visits to Anniston to see my parents a couple times a year renew my interest in the events of the early 1960s. I was in Anniston just a couple weeks ago when I did that particular Google search. As soon as I found Jackson's review I looked up the book on Amazon and ordered a copy. By the time I got back to my home in Ohio the book was waiting for me. I was stunned to see the return address on the package: P. Noble, along with a home address. I realized that I had just experienced a "new media" moment, with Google helping me find content that then pointed me to a book that I then found via Amazon, that then helped me track down an actual person: Phil Noble. But first, some words about the book.

Beyond the Burning Bus is a riveting story, that is, if you are interested in such matters. As should be clear to any reader of this blog, I am a very, very interested reader in such matters. Rarely does a reader find a book one EXACTLY the topic s/he wants to learn more about EXACTLY at that moment. I read through the book -- which is not very long to begin with -- in a couple of days.

From the mid-1950s until 1971 Noble was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Anniston. His book recounts events and details from that period, discussing issues and events that I knew nothing about. He tells the story of how he was approached by two key black pastors in Anniston, hoping to develop a working relationship with a white minister for the good of the two communities, divided by traditions and world views that bubbled up so violently in Anniston that May 14, 1961 day.

In the end, Noble concludes that the severity of the May 14, 1961 attacks and the danger of more violent attacks against blacks in Anniston ultimately had the effect of pulling together whites and blacks for the good of the community -- both economically and socially. More on that later, as well as a follow up phone conversation with Noble.

Finding the Burning Bus marker on Hwy 202

My wife and I recently visited Anniston, Alabama, where I was born in 1957. We wanted to visit the historical marker on Hwy 202 where a mob made up of area residents attacked and burned a Greyhound bus with Freedom Riders on board. Worldwide distribution of the photograph of the incident, which occurred about five miles outside of Anniston, pushed the location along Hwy 202 into the international spotlight.


Freedom Riders with a burning bus at
Anniston, Alabama, May 14, 1961 (UPI)

My family had left the Anniston area in 1958 when my parents became Southern Baptist missionaries to Thailand. We returned to the area several times over the years, the first time in 1962 for our first furlough. We lived for what was my kindergarten year in the small town of Eulaton, within about a mile of the bus burning incident that took place about one year before my family's return to Alabama.

Most of my youth was spent in Thailand during the Vietnam War era, which has long had me thinking about how U.S. history shaped my worldview. Recent visits to the Anniston area to visit family have me to thinking about how these furlough experiences contributed to my personal zeitgeist.

In addition to 1962, we lived in Anniston for the 1968-69 (sixth grade) and 1973-74 (eleventh grade) academic years. I've been overlaying these furlough years with American history to start trying to understand how my understanding of key events in American history are also key events in my own life. Which is what led me to search out the marker along Hwy 202, commemorating the events of May 16, 1961.



To help locate the marker I had in hand Raymond Arsenault's 2006 book, Freedom Riders; 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. I had placed a slip of paper in the book to mark page 142, which had a detailed map of the burning bus location. With book in hand, and the general instruction that the bus was burned about six miles from Anniston, we headed west on Hwy 202. We drove and we drove, looking left and right for the marker, to no avail.

I pulled off the highway at a local establishment to get directions. A young white woman in her mid-20s said she didn't know the location. We pulled over to the edge of the parking lot to study Arsenault's map. Within about 30 seconds there was a tap on the car window. A young white man about the same age as the woman I'd spoken to asked if we were looking for the marker related to the Civil Right's incident. We said yes.

He said it was about a mile back toward Anniston, and that we'd see it on the right side of the highway just around a sweeping turn to the right. We thanked him and pulled back out on the highway. We drove about a mile, past the sweeping right turn, and still we couldn't find the marker.

I turned right at the next opportunity to get off the highway, pulling onto what I quickly realized was the "Old Birmingham Highway," which runs parallel to the new highway for stretches of a few hundred yards at a time. I understood that the incident had taken place along the old highway, so I felt that we might just be heading in the right direction. Heading back west, away from Anniston, I soon saw up ahead that we were running out of road on the old highway. Then I saw it. A marker sat just to the right of the guardrail, just 20-30 feet from the end of the old highway.


This picture is taken looking east, back
toward Anniston.

The marker began: "On May 14, 1961, a Greyhound bus left Atlanta, GA carrying among its passengers seven members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a.k.a. the 'Freedom Riders.'" It goes on to recount the story of the mob attacking and burning the bus on that very location.

So, we'd found it, and yes, it was about a mile from where I spent my kindergarten year starting in the summer of 1962. I'd never heard about the terrible incident as a child, and only more recently did I ask my parents whether they realized at the time we lived in Eulaton that only a year before that the bus burning had taken place. They said they weren't aware of it at the time.

My goal in this post is to make clear exactly how to find this marker, should you ever decide to look for it. These directions should be very clear: Start out at the eastern end of Hwy 202, at Quintard Avenue in Anniston. Drive west exactly five miles and turn left on to the Old Birmingham Hwy.


This picture shows the sign for the Old
Birmingham Hwy. In the far left of the
photo you can barely make out the marker,
which sits atop a small rise that separates
the old highway from the new one below.

As soon as you turn onto the old highway turn right, where you should immediately see the blockade marking the end of the old highway. On your right you'll see the marker, placed there in 2007, commemorating the events of May 14, 1961. And if you can't find it based on these directions, you can read the marker below:



I just came across the book, Beyond the Burning Bus, in a 2003 article in the Anniston Star. I've ordered a copy of the book. I'll let you know what I think about it when I've had a chance to read it.

FOOTNOTEs ADDED 5/19/09:

1. Here's an interesting educational resource, hosted on a Univ. Of Mississippi Web site.

2. Here are two screen shots from google maps, which may help to locate the markers.