A carload of high school seniors went down to enjoy the day at the Greyhound station and do some yelling. I did not care to go, but my family’s house was next to U.S. 78 and I stood in the front yard and watched as the buses went by. After my friends returned to Heflin, I asked what had happened.
I was told that a large crowd had gathered at the bus station and they yelled and hollered at the riders. They said there was a large number of “suits” there, police, FBI and others, but that the suits just stood around the edge and watched. Later that evening, we all heard that one of the buses had been burned a few miles outside Anniston.
An uncle who lived in the Wellborn area and who frequented the “shot houses” near the pipe shops said a man who had been in prison for moonshining was bragging in one of the shot houses that he had done it. The incident in Anniston was truly a historic event and helped to open some doors; have all doors been opened?
One friend went to Detroit during these years as a public school teacher. She said a mural on one wall of the school showed a bus burning and a caption which read: “Remember Anniston.”
Robert Chambless
Auburn
